Using CFD in robotic simulators for pollution monitoring

Abstract

This paper presents the RoboShoalSim, a robot simulator that was developed for the EU Robotic fish shoal project to monitor pollution levels in sea ports around the world. The simulator is different from those in use in that it incorporates not only pollution models of the pollutant in the simulated port but uses computational fluid dynamics of the sea port to generate closer to reality pollutant dynamics. In addition, a physic engine is used with the aim of studying the effects of the Robotic fishes dynamics on the pollutant plume structure. In this paper, the general architecture is described, with preliminary examples of utilization.