BREEZE—Boundary Red Emission Zone Estimation Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Abstract

Catastrophic gas leak events require human First Responder Teams (FRTs) to map hazardous areas (red zones). The initial task of FRT in such events is to assess the risk according to the pollution level and to quickly evacuate civilians to prevent casualties. These teams risk their lives by manually mapping the gas dispersion. This process is currently performed using hand-held gas detectors and requires dense and exhaustive monitoring to achieve reliable maps. However, the conventional mapping process is impaired due to limited human mobility and monitoring capacities. In this context, this paper presents a method for gas sensing using unmanned aerial vehicles. The research focuses on developing a custom path planner—Boundary Red Emission Zone Estimation (BREEZE). BREEZE is an estimation approach that allows efficient red zone delineation by following its boundary. The presented approach improves the gas dispersion mapping process by performing adaptive path planning, monitoring gas dispersion in real time, and analyzing the measurements online. This approach was examined by simulating a cluttered urban site in different environmental conditions. The simulation results show the ability to autonomously perform red zone estimation faster than methods that rely on predetermined paths and with a precision higher than ninety percent.

Monitoring and Cordoning Wildfires with an Autonomous Swarm of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

“…Finally, we wish to mention that wildfires are but one example of a dynamic phenomenon, the tracking and encirclement or edge detection of which may be a worthy objective. Others include, e.g., a diffusing airborne chemical (plume) or a [69] floating contaminant such as an oil spill or garbage patch (https://www.vttresearch.com/en/newsand-ideas/plastic-waste-rivers-recycling-jakarta-indonesia-target-study, accessed on 1 October 2022) [35], etc. For the latter example the demonstrated ability of the swarm to encircle and map an event may be paramount.…”

“…On the other hand, for the detection of transparent gases with the goal of determining the point of origin (e.g., a gas leak) the determining of a gradient [69], the modelling of a plume and the deduction of a potential source location [70] are the primary interests. All these are tasks our swarm approach could be tailored to tackle.…”

OS-BREEZE: Oil Spills Boundary Red Emission Zone Estimation Using Unmanned Surface Vehicles

“…In this setup, an agent is responsible for categorizing each area as either red cells or safe cells. This classification approach enables the utilization of established performance metrics to assess the effectiveness of the OS-BREEZE algorithm as demonstrated in [23]. The core components for measuring performance involve delineating the algorithm's operational domain as a 2D cartesian grid, labeled M. This approach is theoretically grounded in spatial analysis theory, which advocates for a grid-based method to transform complex spatial environments into distinct, manageable units.…”

“…In this context, our recent research introduced an approach known as the Boundary Red Emission Zone Estimation (BREEZE) [ 23 ]. This path-planning method, BREEZE, proposes estimating the boundary of the contaminated area, in events of gas leakage using UAV platforms.…”