Tracking of Fluid-Advected Odor Plumes: Strategies Inspired by Insect Orientation to Pheromone

Autonomous vehicles with plume tracing capabilities would be valuable for finding chemical sources in fluid flows. This article considers strategies allowing autonomous vehicles to find and trace an odor plume to its source. These strategies are inspired by the maneuvers of moths flying upwind along a pheromone plume. Although moth maneuvers are well documented, the mechanisms underlying sensory perception and navigation are not fully understood; therefore, a key objective was to define sensor, signal processing, and actuation algorithms for autonomous vehicles. The strategies presented do not precisely mimic insect orientation to odors. Optimizing performance, however, suggests orientation strategies that may have biological counterparts. The results demonstrate the importance of cross-plume counterturning strategies for maintaining intermittent contact with the chemical plume, given noisy sensory information. It is important for the searcher to maintain intermittent contact with the plume because flow direction while detecting odor is the main indicator of the instantaneous desired direction of motion.