Diff-SPORT: Diffusion-based Sensor Placement Optimization and Reconstruction of Turbulent flows in urban environments

arXiv:2506.00214v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Rapid urbanization demands efficient monitoring of turbulent wind and pollutant dispersion, yet existing reconstruction and sensor placement strategies fail under realistic sparsity constraints. Here, we introduce Diff--SPORT, a diffusion-based framework that combines a generative diffusion prior with maximum a posteriori inference and Shapley-value attribution for high-fidelity flow reconstruction and optimal sensor placement. By training a diffusion prior model once over a domain, Diff--SPORT enables non-linear optimal sensor placement and near-real-time flow reconstruction from sparse measurements orders of magnitude faster than RANS or LES simulations, consistently outperforming state-of-the-art methods. The framework also extends, without algorithmic modification, to experimental passive scalar concentration dataset, a direct proxy for pollutant dispersion, measured in a 1:2400 scale water-flume model of the Beijing Haidian neighbourhood under realistic urban flow conditions. Shapley-guided sensor placement achieves up to 57% lower reconstruction error than randomly placed sensors at extreme sparsity, identifying compact and physically interpretable configurations. These results establish Diff--SPORT as a modular foundation offering a zero-shot alternative to retraining-intensive downstream strategies, supporting scalable urban flow monitoring for air quality management and resilient city design.

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Source: arXiv cs.AI | 2026-09-17