Bio-Inspired Navigation of Chemical Plumes

The ability of many insects, especially moths, to locate either food or a member of the opposite sex is an amazing achievement. There are numerous scenarios where having this ability embedded into ground-based or aerial vehicles would be invaluable. This paper presents results from a 3-D computer simulation of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) autonomously tracking a chemical plume to its source. The simulation study includes a simulated dynamic chemical plume, 6-degree of freedom, nonlinear aircraft model, and a bio-inspired navigation algorithm. The emphasis of this paper is the development and analysis of the navigation algorithm. The foundation of this algorithm is a fuzzy controller designed to categorize where in the plume the aircraft is located: coming into the plume, in the plume, exiting the plume, or out of the plume