Plume-Tracking Robots: A New Application of Chemical Sensors

Abstract

Many animals have the ability to search for odor sources by tracking their plumes. Some of the key features of this search behavior have been successfully transferred to robot platforms, although the capabilities of animals are still beyond the current level of sensor technologies. The examples described in this paper are (1) incorporating into a wheeled robot the upwind surges and casting used by moths in tracking pheromone plumes, (2) extracting useful information from the response patterns of a chemical sensor array patterned after the spatially distributed chemoreceptors of some animals, and (3) mimicking the fanning behavior of silkworm moths to enhance the reception of chemical signals by drawing molecules from one direction. The achievements so far and current efforts are reviewed to illustrate the steps to be taken toward future development of this technology.

Understanding the Potential Impact of Multiple Robots in Odor Source Localization

“…Notably the localization of odor sources would allow for very interesting robotic applications, such as search and rescue operations, safety and control operations on airports or industrial plants, and humanitarian demining [21] [5] [17] [8]. Many of these applications are time-critical, i. e. odor sources should be found as fast as possible.…”

A Graph-Based Formation Algorithm for Odor Plume Tracing

“…While it was not until several decades later that work in robotic olfaction began [27], it has been steadily intensifying ever since. The possibilities are endless, including very promising applications in search and rescue operations [11], as well as environmental and industrial safety [5].…”

Probabilistic gas quantification with MOX sensors in Open Sampling Systems—A Gaussian Process approach

“…The information gained from the dynamic response may be crucial for solving tasks like gas source localization [5,6,7] or gas distribution mapping [8,9].…”