Student Name: Arnold Chen

Advisor: Dr. Jonathan Rogers

Milestone: MS Thesis Proposal

Degree Program: Aerospace Engineering

Title: UAV Implementation of Optimal Path Planning for Radiological Source Localization in Cluttered Environments

Abstract: This proposal presents an algorithm to optimize a radiological search path by leveraging a path-length optimization method combined with a measure of total information gain. A constrained optimization problem is solved in which the goal is to select measurement locations that yield the best-conditioned estimation problem, with the constraint that the total travel time to visit all points must be less than a specified value. The effectiveness of search locations is measured by the stable rank of the kernel matrix, which quantifies the attenuation between each candidate source location and candidate measurement location. Measurement locations are selected by a greedy algorithm for maximum stable rank while the total travel time is minimized by solving the well-known traveling salesman problem. Simulation results of the algorithm demonstrate that the optimization improves the estimation of radiological source term parameters for a given time constraint. The continued work will focus on the implementation of the algorithm on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Modifications to the algorithm will be needed to account for different absorption mediums and isotopes. A lab-based experiment demonstrating a search for radiation point sources of different isotopes is being designed.

Date and time: 2026-04-24, 3:00-4:00

Location: Weber 200

Committee:
Dr. Jonathan Rogers (advisor), School of Aerospace Engineering
Dr. Lu Gan, School of Aerospace Engineering
Dr. Craig Bakker, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
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