Mobile robot olfaction: Towards search and rescue robot dogs

Smell is a valuable sense for search and rescue operations. These are frequently carried out by human brigades supported by highly skilled dogs which are trained to search, detect, and track the scent of victims or lost persons. Robots have been used in the past twenty years or so in multiple disaster scenarios, namely as a tool used for visual inspection of dangerous places or hard to reach locations formed by the collapse of structures. Although significant progresses have been made in robotics locomotion and visual sensing and perception, there is still a large gap in terms of olfaction, so robot dogs can be used in search and rescue operations, effectively replacing their animal counterparts. This talk surveys and analyses the field of mobile robot olfaction, from sensing to decision making algorithms for olfactory guided search and identifies the most significant bottlenecks to build effective robot dogs that use smell to find targets.