UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM presents " Decoding Turbulent Chemical Plumes with Improved Signal Processing and Machine Learning" Dr. Javier Burgués Calderon (Signal and Information Processing for Sensing Systems, Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia, Barcelona) 21 October 2020 13:00 - 14:00 Over Zoom Abstract Millions of years of evolution has aided animals and insects to develop the highly sensitive ability to track and navigate odor plumes over great distances. This behavior is integral to their survival and propagation of the species; decades of research has gone into finding a way to replicate this innate behaviour in autonomous mobile robots. And while it is accepted that animals are able to find hidden information from complex signals for odor navigation purposes, the sub-Hz bandwidth of artificial chemical sensors largely limits the efficacy of information retrieval. Naturally, this hinders the application of mobile robots for chemical source localization tasks. In this seminar, Dr. Burgués will discuss how he and his team are leveraging various signal processing and machine learning techniques in order to decode the fine-scale structure of turbulent chemical plumes using low-cost chemical sensors. Specifically, he will discuss three signal processing methods they developed to improve the dynamics of metal oxide (MOX) gas sensors, and share the experimental setups they used to test their theories. Finally, he will share data from recent experiments and elaborate on the conclusions of their studies and how robotic plume tracking technology might apply to industrial and air quality monitoring, research and more.