chemical plume tracing jay a. farrell, professor department of electrical engineering university of...

Chemical Plume Tracing

Jay A. Farrell, Professor

Department of Electrical Engineering

University of California, Riverside 92521

e: farrell@ee.ucr.edu

v: 909-787-2159

f: 909-787-2425

url: www.ee.ucr.edu/~farrell

• Objectives:– Develop strategies for an AUV to trace a chemical plume to

its source.

• Methods:– On-line deliberative planning– On-line reactive planning– On-line mapping

• Applications:– Detection, localization,

mapping of unexploded ordinance, thermal vents, etc

Autonomous Vehicle Based Chemical Plume Tracing

0

200

-2000200400600800

displacement in ‘x’

disp

lace

men

t in

‘z’

wind

side view

0

-200

200

0-75 75

disp

lac’

t in

‘z’

displac’t in ‘y’

wind

end viewdisplacement in ‘x’

wind

top view

0

100

0200400600-100

800

disp

lace

men

t in

‘y’

Graphics from Carde and Justus at UCR

Moths, birds and other biological entities exhibit such cross-track oscillationsn

Moth Flight Tracks

CPT Challenges• Our goal is to track plumes to their source over near

kilometer distances

• Chemical distribution is intermittent and meandering: gradient following is not possible

• The chemical distribution is likely to be constrained to very low altitudes

• Approach: Decomposition into Plume Search Components

– Plume finding

– Plume tracking

– Plume reacquisition

– Declaration of success: “odor source at (x,y)”

Autonomous Vehicle Architecture

Behavior Switching

AUV Plume Tracing Simulation

7 of 8 Successful Missions- OpArea outlined in green- Trajectory in red- Chemical detections in blue

In-water Experimental Results

In-water Experimental Results

AUV Plume Tracing Experiments

Can we use Chemical Gradients?Movie by Todd Cowen, Cornell

Can Plume width predict range?

Movie by Todd Cowen

Acknowledgement:Funded by the

Office of Naval Research

Open Issues and Future Research:• algorithms to work robustly in the presence of multiple sources• algorithms to map “source free” areas• integration of additional behaviors incorporating data from other sensors

AUV Plume Tracing Experiments

Research Interests

• On-line function approximation based control

- Aircraft control subsequent to battle damage

- Respirator control (w/ local industry)

• High bandwidth cm level accuracy vehicle state estimation

- Snowplow guidance

- Automated highway systems

• Behavior based planning

- Chemical plume tracing