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Infrastructure Monitoring With Multi-Robot Teams

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 Infrastructure Monitoring With Multi-Robot Teams
Gonçalo Cabrita, Pedro Sousa, Lino Marques and Anı́bal T. de Almeida
Abstract— This article presents the first steps toward an
automatic indoor environmental monitoring system through the
use of a group of mobile robots. A metric map is provided a
priori to the robots, ensuring the navigation, localization and
extraction of points of interests for patrolling. The communica-
tion layer is robust and allows any robot to enter or leave the
patrolling task. The monitoring of the environment is achieved
by acquiring environmental information during the patrolling.
If an abnormal condition is detected, the system should react,
providing a fine coverage of the suspicious area and an accurate
identification of its source. Experiments were conducted inside
a building and data was gathered and post processed. The yet
preliminary results demonstrate the effectiveness of the method
employed to control the system, showing good area coverage
from the patrolling algorithm and acceptable representations of
the collected variables (alcohol concentration and temperature).
I. INTRODUCTION
Environmental monitoring can be described as the process
of collecting the necessary data to characterize the quality
of the environment. This notion can be applied to countless
indoor or outdoor applications. A wide range of Man-built
structures accommodate chemicals potentially dangerous to
both its occupants and Nature. Furthermore public buildings
such as airports or train-stations have become preferential tar-
gets for terrorist attacks. The timely detection of environmen-
tal anomalies in this scenarios can prevent potential disasters
and the consequent life losses and property damage [1].
Other structures might hold animal or plant life that needs
certain environmental conditions in order to be properly
sustained. Activities like agriculture can benefit from such
technologies. In museums all over the world variables like
temperature and humidity must be kept constant at all times
in order to help preserve the art pieces which continuously
struggle against time [2].
Environmental monitoring is usually achieved by means of
a sensor network. The network nodes can be static, mobile
or a combination of both. Static wireless sensor networks
(WSN) consist of small nodes equipped with sensors capable
of measuring the desired phenomena. The available solutions
are usually cheap and easy to deploy, even over large areas,
both indoors and outdoors. Static WSN have found their
way into many monitoring applications, from museums [3]
to large glaciers [4]. Mobile robots equipped with multiple
sensors can create a mobile WSN. Mobile robot platforms
come in many shapes, from small ground robots to unmanned
G. Cabrita, P. Sousa, L. Marques and A. T. de Almeida are with Dept.
of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Institute of Systems and Robotics,
University of Coimbra, 3030-290 Coimbra, Portugal.
{goncabrita, pvsousa, lino,
adealmeida}@isr.uc.pt
aerial vehicles (UAVs) or even underwater unmanned vehi-
cles (UUVs), allowing for their deployment in almost any
scenario. A mobile WSN will ultimately perform the same
task a static WSN would, however a small number of mobile
sensors is able to achieve a similar spatial resolution to that
of a static WSN installed over a larger area. Furthermore a
team of robots can be deployed virtually anywhere in a short
amount of time, hence being a far more flexible solution [5].
Finally some applications can benefit from the use of both
static and mobile WSNs. Mobile robots deployed within
an environment equipped with a static WSN can tap into
the existing network to access the environmental data of
the covered area. This allows the robot to make decisions
based on this data and get more detailed readings, thus
improving the coverage and spatial resolution of the complete
system [5].
Patrolling can be defined as the task of repeatedly visiting
a desired location with the purpose of assessing certain
aspects of its environmental state. Since it is not possible to
cover all space at all times each point is visited once every
T seconds, thus the frequency of patrolling is defined as 1/T
Hz [6]. Also known as sweeping or repetitive coverage, the
task of patrolling has had considerable attention from the
mobile robot community in the past few years. Solutions
for multi-robot scenarios usually approach the problem by
dividing the area to patrol into sub-areas which are then
assigned to the available robots. Once this is done each
robot will patrol its own sub-area by means of a single-
robot patrolling algorithm [6]. In 2002 Machado presented
a discussion of multi-agent patrolling task issues. Several
architectures were then compared, from which the best
strategy was considered to be Conscientious Reactive, which
is a local and reactive strategy with no communication, based
on individual idleness and without central coordination [7].
Later in 2004, Chevaleyre carried out a study focused on two
graph-theory centralized planning strategies: cyclic strate-
gies and partitioning strategies [8]. Elmaliach studied the
problem of generating patrolling paths for a team of robots
and presented it in [6]. The patrolling algorithm presented
guarantees that each point in the target area is covered at the
same optimal frequency through the use of Hamilton cycles.
More recently, Portugal and Rocha developed the Multilevel
Subgraph Patrolling (MSP) algorithm [9]. This algorithm was
proven to be superior to existing patrolling algorithms.
Chemical variables can be monitored by a static sensor
network or by mobile robots equipped with monitoring
devices. The most common types of chemical variables
monitored are: volatile organic compounds (VOCs), air con-
taminants, and other type of toxic or hazardous gases [10],
[11], [12]. This type of chemical monitoring can have
multiple objectives from simple air quality supervision to
contamination level tracking or even to trigger alarms in the
case of a serious abnormal occurrence (such as a poisoning
gas leak or other accident).
In the past few years, several researchers have studied
the ability of a mobile robot to react to chemical cues and
track those cues until their source. This problem, known
as the odor plume tracking problem, has been addressed
with several different approaches, either in indoor or in
outdoor environments. Marques [13] compared the perfor-
mance of a gradient-based strategy with two bio-inspired
strategies (moth surge/zig-zagging/spiraling, and bacteria
biased random walks) tracking two different odor sources in
a turbulent environment. In a recent work, Lochmatter [14]
compared the tracking ability of three bio-inspired algorithms
in a laminar wind field. Other researchers employ dense
coverage approaches [15] or nave physics rules to estimate
the localization of odor sources indoor [16].
The rest of this paper is organized in the following
order: Section II states the problem presented in this paper
followed by Section III where the proposed methodology for
solving the problem is explained. The experiments performed
through out the project are described in Section IV while
the results and discussion can be found in Section V. Finally
Section VI presents both the conclusions and future work.
II. PROBLEM STATEMENT
The goal of this work is to be able to monitor a known
indoor environment. It is assumed that a given number of
robots, equipped with sensors able to measure the variables
of interest and to communicate with each other are available.
Each robot should be able to navigate inside the facility,
patrolling and detecting anomalous environmental conditions
(e.g., a high concentration of a chemical vapor). When this
happens, the source of the problem should be identified,
either by the detecting robot or jointly with the support of
other robots. In the current work only chemical releases were
considered and the problem can be divided in the following
sub-problems: (1) patrolling and (2) odor source localization.
The patrolling stage begins with the assignment of patrol
sub-areas to each robot, after which each robot will patrol its
designated area. It is assumed that a metric map of the facility
is provided to the robots. For a flexible and robust system,
robots joining or leaving the communication network should
lead to a redistribution of the patrolling areas thus providing
a higher patrolling frequency given a higher number of robots
or not allowing a certain area to remain un-patrolled in the
event of a robot malfunction.
The odor source localization stage is triggered when a
robot detects an abnormal level of any of the chemicals it
is able to sense in the environment. In order to perform a
multi-robot odor source localization algorithm the necessary
number of robots should be mobilized. Upon the detection
of the odor source a robot should remain to mark the spot.
The following section provides an overview of the pro-
posed methodology for solving the problem stated earlier.
III. PROPOSED METHODOLOGY
A. Map Representation
A task such as multi-robot patrolling, with the exception
of simpler reactive algorithms, inherently needs a map. Maps
usually come in two flavors, metric and topological. Metric
maps provide a realistic representation of the environment,
on the down side they are heavy and complex to process
by most algorithms. Topological maps store less information
by comparison and as a consequence can be used much
more efficiently by most algorithms. For this project both
types of maps were used. A metric map of the infrastructure
to be patrolled is used for navigation and localization.
The same map is converted into a topological map using
OpenCV. The discrete Voronoi diagram is extracted from the
metric map, from which the points of interest are obtained.
The topological map is necessary to perform the patrolling
algorithm.
B. Communication
Although it is not mandatory, communication is useful
when using a group of robots. Communication can be
centralized or distributed. Distributed communication is more
robust since it does not depend on a server to operate
properly. This allows for any part of the system to be dis-
connected without compromising the integrity of the group.
A communication node was developed by the researchers
involved in this project. It relies on OLSR1 to monitor robots
connecting and disconnecting from the network. Olsrd is
the implementation of the Optimized Link State Routing
protocol (OLSR) which provides mesh routing for network
equipment. Olsrd is an ongoing open source project, fast,
highly portable (runs on multiple platforms) and scalable
(runs on community wireless mesh networks with several
nodes) routing protocol for mobile ad-hoc networks [17]. The
developed communication node also allows for the exchange
of messages between different robots without the need of a
server, allowing for any part of the system to malfunction
without compromising the integrity of the whole system.
C. Patrolling Algorithm
The MSP algorithm presented in [9] was chosen for
this project. The MSP Algorithm assumes that robots are
endowed with the environment map and the ability for
self-localization and navigation. The algorithm is based on
multilevel partitioning of the environment map, assigning
different regions to each mobile agent. Each region corre-
sponds to a sub-graph extracted from the existing topological
representation. The algorithm deals, then, with effectively
patrolling each region by computing paths for every robot
in the assigned sub-graph. To accomplish this, it searches
each sub-graph using a classical algorithm for Euler cycles
(visit each edge exactly once) and various heuristics for
Hamiltonian cycles (being a closed loop and visit each
region exactly once), non-Hamiltonian Cycles (do not satisfy
1 http://www.olsr.org/
 Fig. 1. Odor source (cross) and the chemical plume in a junction.

Hamiltonian conditions) and longest paths (a path with the

maximum length in the given sub-graph).

D. Navigation and Localization Fig. 2. The Roomba robots.

As stated earlier, a metric map was used for navigation
and localization. This is accomplished through the navigation
stack from ROS2 (further addressed in Section IV). The
navigation stack takes information from the robot odometry
and from a laser range finder, and outputs to the robot
platform safe velocity commands that allow reaching a
target positions [18]. The adaptive Monte Carlo localization
approach [19], which uses a particle filter to track the pose of
a robot against an existing map is present in the navigation
stack, providing robot localization in the known environment.
This allows the robot to visit the points of interest provided
by the patrolling algorithm described previously.

E. Monitoring the Environment

Monitoring the environment parameters is a complex and
difficult task. In this work, mobile robots are programmed to
patrol a certain area while acquiring various environmental
parameters. Each node of a given path can be visited with a
homogeneous frequency or with a frequency dependant with
its expected interest (e.g., the expected probability of ob-
serving an accident or abnormal occurrence). This frequency
depends from the robot path, so the path of each robot should
be optimized in order to obtain complete area coverage with
a frequency of visits as close as possible to the desired
one. The robot can detect several items, namely: general
pollutants (e.g., CO2 , CO, N Ox , SO2 , VOCs) or specific
chemical substances (e.g., hydrocarbons, ammonia, or other
poisoning gases), particles, temperature or humidity, among
others. Basically, it tries to create a site characterization
where its localization along with the acquired parameters
(alcohol and temperature in our experiments) can be shown.
The spatio-temporal data acquired by each robot is sent
to a central station where all the relevant variables are
fused in order to construct real-time risk maps of the whole
environment. While performing the patrolling task, whenever
an abnormal reading occurs, an alarming event should be
triggered (to assess and address the information received)
and a source tracking behavior should be started.
2 Robot Operating System - http://www.ros.org/wiki/
Fig. 3. Chemical sensor used in the experiments.
F. Odor Source Localization
In the current implementation the robots are not measuring
airflow intensity and direction. This constraints the odor
plume tracking algorithms that can be employed, since the
most effective way to find an odor source consists in moving
upwind through the plume. Given this constraint and the type
of environment that was used in the experiments (mostly
corridors, junctions and rooms), a discrete search across the
nodes and some heuristics was employed to move across the
corridors containing the chemical vapor of interest and esti-
mate its source. As can be seen in Figure 1, when a chemical
trace is detected by the robots, there are a limited number of
branches from where it can come up and therefore a small
number of alternatives for the odor source localization. With
a directional anemometer, it would be possible to explore
immediately the most probable branch. The team is currently
working in the integration of directional anemometers and
in the implementation of efficient odor plume tracking and
localization.
IV. EXPERIMENTS
For this project a small group of Roomba robots depicted
in Figure 2 was used. The Roomba is manufactured by
 93.75

81.25

68.75

56.25

43.75
Fig. 4. Nodes in the map (numbers) and the release point (A).
31.25

18.75

6.25

% of detection

Fig. 6. Robot paths and the chemical data acquired by the robots.

75

65

Fig. 5. The chemical release mechanism.

55

45

iRobot as an autonomous vacuum cleaner, however it is

possible to access and control the robot. This provides a 35

cheap yet robust platform, ideal for multi-robot experiments. 25

Each robot is equipped with a small Eee PC running ROS, an

15
Hokuyo laser range finder, a small artificial nose (shown in
Figure 3) and a thermopile array - TPA81 - from Devantech 5

(used for temperature acquisition). temperature (ºC)

ROS is an open-source operating system for robots. It

provides the services expected to be found in an operating
system such as hardware abstraction, low-level device control
or message-passing between processes [20].
Real world experiments were carried out in the corridors of
the Institute of Systems and Robotics (ISR) in the University
of Coimbra. The initial experiments did not include real
chemical releases, instead PlumeSim was used to simulate
a plume in the corridors of ISR. PlumeSim is an odor
plume simulator designed by the researchers involved in
this project [21]. This allowed to fine tune the algorithm
before releasing actual chemicals into the somewhat crowded
corridors of ISR (Figure 4) for the final experiments.
The final set of experiments included a heat source and
the setup of Figure 5 capable of releasing alcohol into
the environment. The location of the heat source and the
chemical release mechanism is represented as point A in
Figure 4. Each of the three robots was deployed at their
starting locations, and the corridors were patrolled for 30
minutes during each experiment, during which time both the
chemical and temperature data were monitored.
V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The MSP algorithm provided the nodes shown in Figure 4.
The resulting patrolling paths were: robot one 1-2-3-2-4-
2-5; robot two 6-5-7-5-8; robot three 9-8-10-8-11. After
Fig. 7. Robot paths and the temperature measurements acquired by the
robots.
concluding a patrol cycle the robots can either go back to
their first node or perform the inverse path. The inverse path
was chosen for this project.
The chemical and temperature data collected during the
patrolling with real chemical release is here represented in
the form of spatial-temporal graphics. Figure 6 shows the
results for the chemical data while Figure 7 shows the results
for the temperature data. Axis x and y represent the position
of the robot throughout the experiment in meters, the z-
axis represents time in seconds and the color represents the
chemical concentration or temperature.
Both the chemical (Figure 6) and temperature (Figure 7)
data indicate that after the robot has passed point A in
Figure 4 the values read by the sensors take a considerable
travelled distance to come back to clean air concentration and
room temperature. This can be explained by the relatively
fast speed imposed on the robot to assure that a satisfactory
patrolling frequency is achieved and by the time that the
sensors take to settle back after being exposed to high
chemical concentrations or high temperatures. This is also

Fig. 8. The Roomba robots during patrolling task.
clear by the fact that for example on Figure 6 none of the
other robots sense the chemical even when close to nodes 5
(robot 1) and 8 (robot 2) show in Figure 4. Nonetheless the
robot is capable of pinpointing the point of chemical release,
a maximum of chemical concentration is perfectly visible in
Figure 6 coincident with point A in Figure 4. On the other
hand the robot was not able to pinpoint the same point for
the heat-source, indicating that a more suitable temperature
sensor should be used for the purpose of this experiment.
VI. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
The presented work represents another step towards practi-
cal real-life implementation of recent advances in the field of
mobile robotics in the area of environmental monitoring. The
initial results are satisfactory as the group of robots is able
to perform the patrolling and monitoring tasks as expected.
The focus of this work will now go to the multi-robot odor
source localization algorithm. Further experiments will also
be performed with a larger group of robots to determine
the robustness and flexibility of the system as a whole,
determining how the group of robot reacts to new robots or
malfunctioning robots and how the patrolling routes are re-
arranged as needed. Moreover the temperature sensor proved
to be inadequate for the purpose of this project, as a result
a new temperature sensor will be procured for the future,
along with an humidity sensor (or even a combination of
both), relevant for many of the applications described early
in the paper.
Since the developed work is modular it is possible to easily
integrate future advances in the fields of patrolling and odor
source localization, hence improving the final result of this
project. Future work could also include an initial stage of
autonomous mapping, which would allow the robots to be
deployed in an unknown environment. If this was the case
providing the robots with a map of the facility would not be
necessary. Furthermore, if the robots were able to recharge by
means of charging stations it would be possible to maintain
robots patrolling the target facility indefinitely.
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