Abstract
This paper presents a rigorous evaluation of a novel, distributed chemical plume tracing algorithm. The algorithm is a combination of the best aspects of the two most popular predecessors for this task. Furthermore, it is based on solid, formal principles from the field of fluid mechanics. The algorithm is applied by a network of mobile sensing agents (e.g., robots or micro-air vehicles) that sense the ambient fluid velocity and chemical concentration, and calculate derivatives. The algorithm drives the robotic network to the source of the toxic plume, where measures can be taken to disable the source emitter. This work is part of a much larger effort in research and development of a physics-based approach to developing networks of mobile sensing agents for monitoring, tracking, reporting and responding to hazardous conditions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Spears, W., Gordon, D.: Using artificial physics to control agents. In: Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Information, Intelligence, and Systems, (ICIIS 1999) (1999)
Spears, W., Spears, D., Hamann, J., Heil, R.: Distributed, physics-based control of swarms of vehicles. Autonomous Robots 17(2–3) (2004)
Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate: Tracking and Predicting the Atmospheric Dispersion of Hazardous Material Releases: Implications for Homeland Security. National Academies Press, Washington (2003)
Hsu, S.S.: Sensors track terror’s fallout. A01, Washington Post (2003)
Cordesman, A.H.: Defending america: Asymmetric and terrorist attacks with chemical weapons, report produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, CSIS (2001)
Caldwell, S.L., D’Agostino, D.M., McGeary, R.A., Purdy, H.L., Schwartz, M.J., Weeter, G.K., Wyrsch, R.J.: Combating terrorism: Federal agencies’ efforts to implement national policy and strategy (1997) Congressional report GAO/NSIAD- 97-254, produced by the United States General Accounting Office (1997)
Spears, W., Heil, R., Spears, D., Zarzhitsky, D.: Physicomimetics for mobile robot formations. In: Proceedings of the Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi Agent Systems (AAMAS 2004), vol. 3, pp. 1528–1529 (2004)
Carlson, E.S., Sun, H., Smith, D.H., Zhang, J.: Third Order Accuracy of the 4- Point Hexagonal Net Grid. Finite Difference Scheme for Solving the 2D Helmholtz Equation. Technical Report No. 379-03, Department of Computer Science, University of Kentucky (2003)
Ball, P.: Odour-tracking trick sniffed out. Nature (2002)
Adam, D.: Wing scents. Nature (2000)
Parunak, H.V.D., Brueckner, S.: Entropy and self-organization in multi-agent systems. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Autonomous Agents (AGENTS 2001), pp. 124–130 (2001)
Koenig, S., Liu, Y.: Terrain coverage with ant robots: A simulation study. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Autonomous Agents (AGENTS 2001), pp. 600–607 (2001)
Sandini, G., Lucarini, G., Varoli, M.: Gradient driven self-organizing systems. In: Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 1993) (1993)
Chemical plume tracing. Cowen, E. (ed.): Environmental Fluid Mechanics, 2nd edn. Kluwer, Dordrecht (2002)
Hayes, A., Martinoli, A., Goodman, R.: Swarm robotic odor localization. In: Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2001) (2001)
Decuyper, J., Keymeulen, D.: A reactive robot navigation system based on a fluid dynamics metaphor. In: Schwefel, H.P., Mánner, R. (eds.) PPSN 1990. LNCS, vol. 496, pp. 356–362. Springer, Heidelberg (1991)
Keymeulen, D., Decuyper, J.: The fluid dynamics applied to mobile robot motion: the stream field method. In: Proceedings of the 1994 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 1994), vol. 4, pp. 378–385. IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos (1994)
Keymeulen, D., Decuyper, J.: The stream field method applied to mobile robot navigation: a topological perspective. In: Cohn, A.G. (ed.) Proceedings of the Eleventh European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI 1994), pp. 699–703. John Wiley and Sons, Chichester (1994)
Balkovsky, E., Shraiman, B.: Olfactory search at high reynolds number. National Academies Press 99, 12589–12593 (2002)
Horling, B., Vincent, R., Mailler, R., Shen, J., Becker, R., Rawlins, K., Lesser, V.: Distributed sensor network for real time tracking. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Autonomous Agents (AGENTS 2001), pp. 417–424 (2001)
Polycarpou, M.M., Yang, Y., Passino, K.M.: Cooperative control of distributed multi-agent systems. IEEE Control Systems Magazine (2001)
Tannehill, J.C., Anderson, D.A., Pletcher, R.H.: Computational Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer. Taylor & Francis, Abington (1997)
Anderson, J.D.: Computational Fluid Dynamics. McGraw-Hill, New York (1995)
Versteeg, H.K., Malalasekera, W.: An introduction to computational fluid dynamics: the finite volume method. Longman Scientific and Technical (1995)
Hughes-Hallett, D., Gleason, A.M., et al.: Calculus: Single and Multivariable. John Wiley and Sons, Chichester (1998)
Craig, J.J.: Introduction to robotics: mechanics and control. Addison-Wesley, Amsterdam (1989)
Faires, J.D., Burden, R.: Numerical Methods. Brooks/Cole - Thomson Learning (2003)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Zarzhitsky, D., Spears, D., Thayer, D., Spears, W. (2004). Agent-Based Chemical Plume Tracing Using Fluid Dynamics. In: Hinchey, M.G., Rash, J.L., Truszkowski, W.F., Rouff, C.A. (eds) Formal Approaches to Agent-Based Systems. FAABS 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 3228. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30960-4_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30960-4_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-24422-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-30960-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)