EESS talk - Student presentation on "Robotic gas sensing: challenges and opportunities"
Abstract:
Harmful chemical compounds are released daily in warehouses, chemical plants and during environmental emergencies. Their uncontrolled dispersion contributes to the pollution of the atmosphere and poses a considerable threat to both human and animal lives. Scientific advances in the fields of robotics, embedded systems and chemical sensing allow robotic assets equipped with gas sensors to be employed in gas sensing missions. In particular, the employment of drones offers a promising research direction because their versatility of movement can capture the tridimensional nature of the gas dispersion phenomenon.
During this talk, I will discuss ways in which small aerial vehicles can be employed in gas sensing missions. After describing our bespoke gas sensing setup, I will draw the attention to an important tradeoff between exploration of the environment and exploitation of sensed gas cues, and I will explain how adaptive sampling techniques try to maximize the outcome of a gas sensing mission. Finally, I will comment on the application of multi-robot systems to the field of gas sensing with the aim of speeding up urgent missions.
Short Biography:
Chiara Ercolani is a Ph.D. student at the Distributed Intelligent Systems and Algorithms Laboratory at EPFL working on 3D gas source localization and distribution mapping. She received her M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering with a specialization in Digital Electronics and Computer Engineering in 2018 from EPFL, and she carried out her Master Thesis at the Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA Ames Research Center. She received her B.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering in 2015 from Politecnico di Milano. Her research interests include environmental monitoring, path planning, embedded systems, multi-robot systems and machine learning.
Harmful chemical compounds are released daily in warehouses, chemical plants and during environmental emergencies. Their uncontrolled dispersion contributes to the pollution of the atmosphere and poses a considerable threat to both human and animal lives. Scientific advances in the fields of robotics, embedded systems and chemical sensing allow robotic assets equipped with gas sensors to be employed in gas sensing missions. In particular, the employment of drones offers a promising research direction because their versatility of movement can capture the tridimensional nature of the gas dispersion phenomenon.
During this talk, I will discuss ways in which small aerial vehicles can be employed in gas sensing missions. After describing our bespoke gas sensing setup, I will draw the attention to an important tradeoff between exploration of the environment and exploitation of sensed gas cues, and I will explain how adaptive sampling techniques try to maximize the outcome of a gas sensing mission. Finally, I will comment on the application of multi-robot systems to the field of gas sensing with the aim of speeding up urgent missions.
Short Biography:
Chiara Ercolani is a Ph.D. student at the Distributed Intelligent Systems and Algorithms Laboratory at EPFL working on 3D gas source localization and distribution mapping. She received her M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering with a specialization in Digital Electronics and Computer Engineering in 2018 from EPFL, and she carried out her Master Thesis at the Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA Ames Research Center. She received her B.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering in 2015 from Politecnico di Milano. Her research interests include environmental monitoring, path planning, embedded systems, multi-robot systems and machine learning.
Practical information
- General public
- Free
- This event is internal
Organizer
- EESS - IIE
Contact
- Dr. Stéphane Joost, LGB