A generic framework for monitoring pollution plumes in emergencies using UAVs

Monitoring air pollution plumes in emergency situations (industrial accidents, natural disasters, deliberate terrorist releases, etc.) becomes an issue of utmost importance in our society given the dramatic effects that the released pollutants can cause. Considering these situations, the pollution plume is strongly dynamic leading to a fast dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere. Thus, the need for real-time response is very strong and a solution to get precise mapping of pollution dispersion is required to mitigate risks. However, monitoring and forecasting air quality in real time in such situations remains a highly challenging endeavour. In this paper, we suggest a systemic approach for monitoring dynamic air pollution based on aerial sensing (sensors mounted on UAVs). The proposed framework consists of a cycle with feedback loop which will constantly combine a spatio-temporal forecasting model based on a convolutional long short term memory (ConvLSTM) network with a data assimilation technique to get accurate pollution maps, while adjusting at each time the trajectories of drones following uncertainty forecasts. Our solution was evaluated and validated using a highly dynamic real world data set namely Fusion Field Trial 2007 (FFT07). The proposed strategy, together with the obtained evaluation results, are presented, and carefully analyzed.