Estimation of a gaseous release into the atmosphere using an unmanned aerial vehicle

A method based on controls and computational fluid dynamics for the estimation of a gaseous plume that results from gas released into the ambient atmosphere through a moving aerial source is presented. The estimation scheme, in the form of the Luenberger observer, utilizes concentration sensor measurements provided by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The estimator is in the form of an advection-diffusion equation and is solved in real-time by a finite volume method with total variation diminishing (TVD) limiter and dynamic grid adaptation. The control algorithm for the motion of the UAV is implemented via Lyapunov redesign methods and couples the UAV dynamics to the performance of the process estimator. Numerical examples are included to illustrate the performance of the method.