Contaminant source location approach based on multi-hypothesis position

Accidental contaminant events often threaten people's health and life, it is necessary to identify a contaminant source rapidly so that prompt actions can be taken. An effective source identification method should be composed of contaminant detection, a source location and its strength estimation. The source location is a key link for source identification. Actually source emission is often a continuous process and monitoring data are usually influenced by sensor measurement noise. These two factors make the existing methods subjected to more restrictions in practical application. A contaminant source location method based on multi-hypothesis source position (MHSP) is established and attempt to solve the above-mentioned problems. It realizes source identification by comparing the similarity between the sensor-measured concentration distribution and the multiple hypothetical concentration distributions calculated at the monitoring point based on MHSP. The proposed method is capable of identifying a source position, estimating its initial emission time and approximate strength. The location probability function (LPF) of source is established to show the location results.