Decentralised Scalable Search for a Hazardous Source in Turbulent Conditions

The problem is autonomous coordinated search by an interconnected group of moving robots for the purpose of finding and localising a source of hazardous emissions (e.g., gas and particles). Dispersion of the emitted substance is assumed to be affected by turbulence, resulting in the absence of concentration gradients. The chapter proposes a search strategy that operates in a completely decentralised manner, as long as the communication network of the moving robots forms a connected graph. By decentralised operation, we mean that each moving robot is reasoning (i.e., estimating the source location and making decisions on robot motion) locally. Coordination of the group is achieved by consensus via communication with the neighbours only, in a manner which does not require global knowledge of the communication network topology.