Determination of gas source existence in a specified area by active airflow generator robots

A new method for robotic gas-source localization is proposed. Extensive research efforts have been made to develop robots that can autonomously search for gas sources. Successful demonstrations on gas source localization have been reported mostly for experiments conducted in simple environments, e.g., in a uniform unidirectional airflow field in a wind tunnel. However, to locate a gas source in a complicated airflow field in a real environment is still a challenging task. Therefore, we propose to deploy multiple robots equipped with fans to change the complicated airflow field into simple one. A prototype airflow generator robot equipped with two fans has been developed. In the proposed method, the search area is divided into subareas, each of which measures a few meters square. Then, the existence of a gas source in each subarea is checked in turn by measuring the gas concentration along the perimeter of each subarea. Experimental results are presented to show the feasibility of the proposed method.