A New Approach to Biomimetic Robots for Odor Source Localization

Abstract

Tracking odor to its source is the survival instinct of many animals gained in evolution, and that capability can be transferred to robotics. This paper describes a new and practical investigation of biomimetic robots for odor source localization. An embedded mobile robot platform was developed to process multi-tasks. A new odor sensing unit with a special data fusion algorithm was designed to enable fast and realtime sensing. Inspired by animals' behaviour and based on odor predictions, a novel algorithm was designed to locate an odor source. Results of indoor experiments show that the robot can find a static odor source and follow a moving odor source.