Robotic gas source localization assisted by active airflow generation

A new robotic gas source localization method that uses actively generated airflow is proposed. A gas source localization robot searches for the location of a gas source by tracking the gas plume in the upwind direction. However, the robot often fails in tracking a gas plume in an actual environment owing to the complexity of the airflow field and the resultant plume structure. To solve this problem, we propose to simplify the complicated airflow field so that the robot can easily track the plume. Several fans are aligned in the area of interest to generate a unidirectional airflow field. Experimental results are presented to show that the proposed method enables the robot to track the gas plume more robustly in a shorter time.