Optimal Model-Based Sensor Placement & Adaptive Monitoring Of An Oil Spill

Abstract: This paper presents a model based adaptive monitoring method for the estimation of flow tracers, with application to mapping, prediction and observation of oil spills in the immediate aftermath of an incident. Autonomous agents are guided to optimal sensing locations via the solution of a PDE constrained optimisation problem, obtained using the adjoint method. The proposed method employs a dynamic model of the combined ocean and oil dynamics, with states that are updated in real-time using a Kalman filter that fuses agent-based measurements with a reduced-order model of the ocean circulation dynamics. In turn, the updated predictions from the fluid model are used to identify and update the reduced order model, in a process of continuous feedback. The proposed method exhibits a 30% oil presence mapping and prediction improvement compared to standard industrial oil observation sensor guidance and model use.