Micro-Drone for Wind Vector Estimation and Gas Distribution Mapping

This paper presents the development and validation of an autonomous gas-sensitive micro-drone, which is capable of estimating the wind vector in real time using only the on-board control unit of the micro-drone and performing gas distribution mapping. Two different sampling approaches are suggested in order to address this problem. On one hand, a predefined trajectory is used to explore the target area with the microdrone in a real-world gas distribution mapping experiment. As an alternative sampling approach we introduce an adaptive strategy, which suggests next sampling points based on an Artificial Potential Field (APF). Initial results in real-world experiments demonstrate the capability of the proposed adaptive sampling strategy for gas distribution mapping and its use for gas source localization.