The objective of CPT is shown in the adjacent figure (produced by Arete Associates). When chemical is detected (indicated by red area), the vehicle should interupt its preplanned mission (indicated by dashed line), track the chemical plume to its source, and accurately declare the source location.  Following declaration of the source location, the vehicle may perform Fly-by maneuvers to allow additional sensors to view the source.

The following link displays a simulation of a vehicle performing CPT:

movie of simulated CPT

 


This research began with funding under the Chemical Plume Tracing (CPT) Program Lead by Keith Ward and Regina Dugan with sponsorship by DARPA and ONR. The CPT research was collaborative with Ringe Cardé and John Murlis.  The CPT Program involved a competition between various research groups to design biologically motivated CPT algorithms.

 

At the completion of the CPT phase of the project, the research team led by Farrell was invited to transition to the Chemical Sensing in the Marine Environment (CSME) Program lead by Keith Ward with sponsorship from ONR.  This was a research and demonstration phase. This project resulted in the first ever demonstration of Chemical Plume Tracing in a near shore ocean environment over significant distances (~1km).

Research results are described in the following journal articles:

1.      W. Li, J. A. Farrell, and R. T. Cardé. 2001. Tracking of Fluid-Advected Odor Plumes: Strategies Inspired by Insect Orientation to Pheromone, Adaptive Behavior, 9 (3/4): 143-170.

2.      J. A. Farrell, J. Murlis, W. Li, R. T. Cardé, Filament-Based Atmospheric Dispersion Model to Achieve Short Time-Scale Structure of Odor Plumes, Environmental Fluid Mechanics. 2, pp. 143—169, 2002.

3.      S. Pang, J. A. Farrell, W. Li, Plume Mapping via Hidden Markov Methods, Systems, Man, and Cybernetics - Part B, 33(6), pp. 850-863, 2003.

4.      J. A. Farrell, S. Pang, W. Li, Chemical Plume Tracing via an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, IEEE J. of Oceanic Engineering, 30, 2, 428-442, 2005. 

5.      W. Li, J. A. Farrell, S. Pang, R. M. Arrieta, Moth-Inspired Chemical Plume Tracing on an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 22(2), pp. 292-307, 2006.

6.      S. Pang, J. A. Farrell, Chemical Plume Source Localization, IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics - Part B, 36(5), 1068-1080, 2006.

Related conference publications:

1.      R. M. Arrieta, J. A. Farrell, W. Li, S. Pang, Initial Development and Testing of an Adaptive Mission Planner for a Small Unmanned Underwater Vehicle, Proc. Of the 22nd Int. Conf. On Offshore Mechanics and Artic Engineering, OMEA2003-37273, 2003.

2.      S. Pang, J. A. Farrell, R. M. Arrieta, and , W. Li, AUV Reactive Planning: Deepest Point, MTS/IEEE Oceans 2003, pp. 2222-2226, 2003.

3.      J. A. Farrell, W. Li, S. Pang, R. Arrieta, Chemical Plume Tracing Experimental Results with a REMUS AUV, MTS/IEEE Oceans 2003, pp. 962-968, 2003.

4.      J. A. Farrell, S. Pang, W. Li., R. Arrieta, Biologically Inspired Chemical Plume Tracing Demonstrated on an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Conference, Hague, Netherlands, October 2004, 5991-5996, 2004

Photo of the REMUS vehicle immediately after launch during testing with the US Navy in August 2002.

 

Movies of the vehicle performing source declaration maneuvers near the chemical source are provided at the following three links:
REMUS near camera and source
REMUS with divers near source
REMUS near source

 

This set of  tests included 7 runs.  The mission area was significantly larger than the previous in-water tests.

The figure to the right shows the result of MSN003. The red curve indicates the vehicle trajectory. Blue x’s indicate locations where chemical was detected. The experiment takes place in a near-shore ocean environment. Therefore, the flow varies with location and time. Its main component is from top-left to bottom-right. In this experiment, AMP implemented a mission very similar to that shown in the graphic at the top of this www page.  AMP broke off from the nominal REMUS mission when chemical was detected.  AMP traced the chemical plume and declared a source location within 13 m of the location confirmed by sidescan sonar data.  The Euclidean distance between the first point of chemical detection and the declared source location is 975 m.

 

 

 

 

Presentations related to this research project by J. A. Farrell, since Feb. 2001:

  1. ONR CSME Meeting,  February 2001.
  2. Explosive Detection Workshop, Feb 28 - March 2, 2001, Naval Research Lab, Washington.
  3. ONR CSME Meeting, UCR, March 20, 2002.
  4. ONR CSME Meeting, April 26, 2002, Monterrey, CA.
  5. DARPA Biological Input Output Systems Program, June 14-15, 2002, San Diego, CA.
  6. ONR Program Review,  September 18, 2002, Duck Key, FL.
  7. Homeland Security Workshop, UCR College of Engineering, October 11, 2002.
  8. College of Engineering, Industry Day, UCR,  November 20, 2002.
  9. College of Engineering, Board of Advisors, UCR,  December 6, 2002.
  10. College of Engineering, Council of Advisors, UCR,  January 30, 2003.
  11. SPAWAR Breifing, February 5, 2003.
  12. ONR CSME Meeting, SPAWAR, May 22, 2003.
  13. Workshop Celebrating Retirement of Anthony Michel, University of Notre Dame, April 5, 2003
  14. Electrical Engineering Department, Board of Advisors, UCR,  April 11, 2003..
  15. UCR Undergraduate Honors Seminar, May 7, 2003.
  16. ONR Program Review,  September 2003, Duck Key, FL.
Jay Farrell 07/2006