@inproceedings{88364c902fd540cb92230f1801104cec,
title = "A distributed intelligence approach to using collaborating unmanned aerial vehicles for oil spill mapping",
abstract = "From swarming locusts to schools of fish, the complex emergent behaviors exhibited by multi-agent swarm systems in nature present a compelling basis for their application towards real-world challenges. This paper capitalizes on this potential by proposing a swarm-intelligence inspired approach towards mapping complex offshore oil spills - one that uses a collaborating team of small (inexpensive) unmanned aerial vehicles. By leveraging the idea of occupancy grids, a new probability map concept is developed to enable agent-level situational awareness, while significantly reducing computing overheads (image data to intelligence generation in 1 sec) and communication overheads ( 1.7 KB of average data sharing across the swarm agents). The probability map is further exploited for waypoint planning using the principles of swarm dynamics and a rule-based reasoning approach to allow for dynamic preference shifts towards map exploitation and exploration. Detection of oil is performed by using a generalizable concept of anomaly detection that is derived from a color-based segmentation approach. Two simulated case studies, derived from actual oil spill images, are presented with results highlighting the strengths of the proposed approach.",
keywords = "Anomaly detection, Occupancy grid, Oil spill mapping, Particle swarm optimization, Swarm intelligence, Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)",
author = "Philip Odonkor and Zachary Ball and Souma Chowdhury",
note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} Copyright 2017 ASME.; ASME 2017 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, IDETC/CIE 2017 ; Conference date: 06-08-2017 Through 09-08-2017",
year = "2017",
doi = "10.1115/DETC2017-68320",
language = "English",
series = "Proceedings of the ASME Design Engineering Technical Conference",
publisher = "American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)",
booktitle = "43rd Design Automation Conference",
address = "United States",
}