DLW-CI: A Dynamic Likelihood-Weighted Cooperative Infotaxis Approach for Multi-Source Search in Urban Environments Using Consumer Drone Networks

Consumer-grade drones equipped with low-cost sensors have emerged as a cornerstone of Autonomous Intelligent Systems (AISs) for environmental monitoring and hazardous substance detection in urban environments. However, existing research primarily addresses single-source search problems, overlooking the complexities of real-world urban scenarios where both the location and quantity of hazardous sources remain unknown. To address this issue, we propose the Dynamic Likelihood-Weighted Cooperative Infotaxis (DLW-CI) approach for consumer drone networks. Our approach enhances multi-drone collaboration in AISs by combining infotaxis (a cognitive search strategy) with optimized source term estimation and an innovative cooperative mechanism. Specifically, we introduce a novel source term estimation method that utilizes multiple parallel particle filters, with each filter dedicated to estimating the parameters of a potentially unknown source within the search scene. Furthermore, we develop a cooperative mechanism based on dynamic likelihood weights to prevent multiple drones from simultaneously estimating and searching for the same source, thus optimizing the energy efficiency and search coverage of the consumer AIS. Experimental results demonstrate that the DLW-CI approach significantly outperforms baseline methods regarding success rate, accuracy, and root mean square error, particularly in scenarios with relatively few sources, regardless of the presence of obstacles. Also, the effectiveness of the proposed approach is verified in a diffusion scenario generated by the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. Research findings indicate that our approach could improve source estimation accuracy and search efficiency by consumer drone-based AISs, making a valuable contribution to environmental safety monitoring applications within smart city infrastructure.