Multiple Autonomous Vehicles Applied to Plume Detection and Tracking

Abstract

This paper presents a novel approach for studying riverine plumes. It combines remote-sensing with autonomous in-situ observations performed by a set of unmanned vehicles (underwater and aerial). While an aerial drone is remotely piloted to detect the plume from air, multiple underwater vehicles autonomously detect the plume edge and map their structure by traversing it multiple times, autonomously. This approach has been used multiple times to acquire the 3D structure of the Douro river plume, in Porto.