Multi UAV Coordination for Tracking the Dispersion of a Contaminant Cloud in an Urban Region

In this paper, we develop a mechanism to detect, model and track the shape of a contaminant cloud boundary using air borne sensor swarms. The cloud consists of a transparent gas of nuclear, biological or chemical contaminants and is spreading slowly in an urban environment. A group of Uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs), having the required sensors, are made to fly through the cloud to detect the boundary of the cloud. The shape of the cloud is modeled using splinegon and the movement of the cloud is tracked using an observer. The output of the observer is used in the path planning of the UAVs. A simple path planning algorithm is proposed that along with the observer can accurately track the shape of the moving cloud without the knowledge of the initial boundary of the cloud. Simulated experiments are carried out to test the proposed cloud tracking algorithm.