Information value in nonparametric Dirichlet-process Gaussian-process (DPGP) mixture models

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd This paper presents tractable information value functions for Dirichlet-process Gaussian-process (DPGP) mixture models obtained via collocation methods and Monte Carlo integration. Quantifying information value in tractable closed form is key to solving control and estimation problems for autonomous information-gathering systems. The properties of the proposed value functions are analyzed and then demonstrated by planning sensor measurements so as to minimize the uncertainty in DPGP target models that are learned incrementally over time. Simulation results show that sensor planning based on expected KL divergence outperforms algorithms based on mutual information, particle filters, and randomized methods

An informative path planning framework for UAV-based terrain monitoring

© 2020, The Author(s). Unmanned aerial vehicles represent a new frontier in a wide range of monitoring and research applications. To fully leverage their potential, a key challenge is planning missions for efficient data acquisition in complex environments. To address this issue, this article introduces a general informative path planning framework for monitoring scenarios using an aerial robot, focusing on problems in which the value of sensor information is unevenly distributed in a target area and unknown a priori. The approach is capable of learning and focusing on regions of interest via adaptation to map either discrete or continuous variables on the terrain using variable-resolution data received from probabilistic sensors. During a mission, the terrain maps built online are used to plan information-rich trajectories in continuous 3-D space by optimizing initial solutions obtained by a coarse grid search. Extensive simulations show that our approach is more efficient than existing methods. We also demonstrate its real-time application on a photorealistic mapping scenario using a publicly available dataset and a proof of concept for an agricultural monitoring task