Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
A mobile autonomous robot capable of tracking an odor plume to its source can be used to locate hazardous material spills or leaks. To test plume tracking strategies in a laboratory environment, a robotic platform consisting of a linear Cartesian robotic gantry mounted inside a wind tunnel with a mobile floor has been designed. A plume of ionized air is created by an ion detector installed in the wind tunnel. A two-dimensional plume tracking strategy based on the behavior of the tobacco hornworm moth Manduca sexta is implemented and tested. It is discovered that a plume tracking algorithm can be implemented with the robotic platform almost as easily as in simulation.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Rutkowski et al. (2004) studied this question.