Remote sensing and localization of gas/odor source and distribution using mobile sensing system

A new method to remotely locate an odor source using a mobile robot with a gas sensor is proposed. Although several odor-source localization systems have been already reported, the source location is not known until those systems finally arrive at the location. Since the proposed method enables the estimation of the distance to the source simultaneously with its direction, the source can be remotely located. Furthermore, the release rate of the odor and the range of its distribution can be obtained using this method. This feature is realized by moving the robot and fitting the gas distribution model to the gas sensor response at each location considering the response delay. The soundness of the method is shown by the experiments on ethanol-gas-source localization in a clean room.