Autonomous Robots for Pollution Source Localisation and Visualisation

Air quality regulation is increasingly becoming ever more predominant within construction, mining, power and other industries. To monitor for air pollution, static monitoring stations are placed along industrial perimeters. This allows for a general picture of the air quality but is costly to implement due to the high number needed to monitor large areas effectively. An autonomous mobile robot equipped with air quality sensors would allow for comprehensive monitoring of the entire perimeter. However, current robot solutions are expensive and limit the number of robots that can be used leading to a reduction in sensory data resolution.
This project proposes the development of a cost-effective autonomous mobile robot capable of monitoring large outdoor areas for air pollution. The novelty in this solution is that the unit price of the robot will be significantly less than current market alternatives, allowing for multiple robots to be implemented. This would allow for regular sensory updates along the perimeter and increase data reliability.
In order to achieve this, a rugged and weatherproof robot platform will be designed that can handle operating in varying levels of terrain. The robot will contain all the necessary sensors needed to accurately read for various pollutants and include a means of wirelessly uploading the gathered data to an online server in real time. Navigation and obstacle avoidance software will be developed to allow the robot to follow global positioning system waypoint commands and navigate around the perimeter without colliding with obstacles. Each robot will be controlled by an online server which will determine when a robot should begin a patrol and where it should go. The server will also be the operator's graphical user interface so that the robot's path and patrol frequency can be chosen. Along with controlling the robots, the server will also compile all the gathered data from each robot and display it in graphical and mapped form. This will allow the operator to clearly see the location of any high levels of air pollution and visualise how the air quality has changed over time.