Estimating a continuous odor-patch path using discrete measurements for odor source localization

This paper addresses the problem of estimating a continuous odor-patch path which is most likely taken by an odor patch detected by a mobile robot in a time-varying airflow environment. The estimated odor-patch path is great useful for odor source localization, while the existing methods for odor-patch path estimation are either at high computational cost, or in discrete form that is incomplete for estimating the position of the odor source. In this paper, an algorithm for estimating a continuous odor-patch path using discrete measurements in the time-varying airflow environment is proposed. The algorithm has a low computational cost, thus it can be used in online applications. Experiments are carried out on a mobile robot equipped with a gas sensor and an anemometer. The experiment results in an outdoor nature airflow environment show that the odor-patch path can be well estimated online.