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- Localization of gas sources (2)
- Mobile Robot Olfaction (2)
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- Tomographic reconstruction of gas plumes (2)
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Organisationseinheit der BAM
This paper outlines significant advancements in our previously developed aerial gas tomography system, now optimized to reconstruct 2D tomographic slices of gas plumes with enhanced precision in outdoor environments. The core of our system is an aerial robot equipped with a custom-built 3-axis aerial gimbal, a Tunable Diode Laser Absorption Spectroscopy (TDLAS) sensor for CH4 measurements, a laser rangefinder, and a wide-angle camera, combined with a state-of-the-art gas tomography algorithm. In real-world experiments, we sent the aerial robot along gate-shaped flight patterns over a semi-controlled environment with a static-like gas plume, providing a welldefined ground truth for system evaluation. The reconstructed cross-sectional 2D images closely matched the known ground truth concentration, confirming the system’s high accuracy and reliability. The demonstrated system’s capabilities open doors for potential applications in environmental monitoring and industrial safety, though further testing is planned to ascertain the system’s operational boundaries fully.
The development of algorithms for mapping gas distributions and localising gas sources is a challenging task, because gas dispersion is a highly dynamic process and it is impossible to capture ground truth data. Fluid-mechanical simulations are a suitable way to support the development of these algorithms. Several tools for gas dispersion simulation have been developed, but they are not suitable for simulations of large outdoor environments. In this paper, we present a concept of how an existing simulator can be extended to handle both indoor and large outdoor scenarios.
This presentation gives an introduction to the gas-sensitive aerial robots developed at BAM, including various application examples in the field of mobile robot olfaction: gas source localization and gas distribution mapping.
Remote gas sensors like those based on the Tunable Diode Laser Absorption Spectroscopy (TDLAS) enable mobile robots to scan huge areas for gas concentrations in reasonable time and are therefore well suited for tasks such as gas emission surveillance and environmental monitoring. A further advantage of remote sensors is that the gas distribution is not disturbed by the sensing platform itself if the measurements are carried out from a sufficient distance, which is particularly interesting when a rotary-wing platform is used. Since there is no possibility to obtain ground truth measurements of gas distributions, simulations are used to develop and evaluate suitable olfaction algorithms. For this purpose several models of in-situ gas sensors have been developed, but models of remote gas sensors are missing. In this paper we present two novel 3D ray-tracer-based TDLAS sensor models. While the first model simplifies the laser beam as a line, the second model takes the conical shape of the beam into account. Using a simulated gas plume, we compare the line model with the cone model in terms of accuracy and computational cost and show that the results generated by the cone model can differ significantly from those of the line model.
For several applications involving multirotor aircraft, it is crucial to know both the direction and speed of the ambient wind. In this paper, an approach to wind vector estimation based on an equilibrium of the principal forces acting on the aircraft is shown. As the thrust force generated by the rotors depends on their rotational speed, a sensor to measure this quantity is required. Two concepts for such a sensor are presented: One is based on tapping the signal carrying the speed setpoint for the motor controllers, the other one uses phototransistors placed underneath the rotor blades. While some complications were encountered with the first approach, the second yields accurate measurement data. This is shown by an experiment comparing the proposed speed sensor to a commercial non-contact tachometer.
This paper introduces a novel robotic platform for aerial remote gas sensing. Spectroscopic measurement methods for remote sensing of selected gases lend themselves for use on mini-copters, which offer a number of advantages for inspection and surveillance. No direct contact with the target gas is needed and thus the influence of the aerial platform on the measured gas plume can be kept to a minimum. This allows to overcome one of the major issues with gas-sensitive mini-copters. On the other hand, remote gas sensors, most prominently Tunable Diode Laser Absorption Spectroscopy (TDLAS) sensors have been too bulky given the payload and energy restrictions of mini-copters. Here, we introduce and present the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for Remote Gas Sensing (UAV-REGAS), which combines a novel lightweight TDLAS sensor with a 3-axis aerial stabilization gimbal for aiming on a versatile hexacopter. The proposed system can be deployed in scenarios that cannot be addressed by currently available robots and thus constitutes a significant step forward for the field of Mobile Robot Olfaction (MRO). It enables tomographic reconstruction of gas plumes and a localization of gas sources. We also present first results showing the gas sensing and aiming capabilities under realistic conditions.