Tracking Odor Plumes in a Laminar Wind Field with Bio-Inspired Algorithms

We introduce a novel bio-inspired odor source localization algorithm (surge- cast) for environments with a main wind flow and compare it to two well-known algorithms. With all three algorithms, systematic experiments with real robots are carried out in a wind tunnel under laminar flow conditions. The algorithms are compared in terms of distance overhead when tracking the plume up to the source, but a variety of other experimental results and some theoretical considerations are provided as well. We conclude that the surge-cast algorithm yields significantly better performance than the casting algorithm, and slightly better performance than the surge-spiral algorithm.