Boundary tracking using a suboptimal sliding mode algorithm

In this paper, a sliding mode control algorithm is proposed that allows a single, sensor enabled agent to navigate along the boundary of a contaminated region. The proposed control algorithm only requires knowledge of the local measurement of the scalar field. No gradient information is required for the spatial phenomenon and this distinguishes this work from much of the existing literature. The efficacy of the proposed approach is demonstrated using synthetic volcanic eruption dispersion data made available from a complex Lagrangian model.