Concept of an electronic nose
The concept of an electronic nose originated in the seventies. Up to then, analytical chemistry had been pre-occupied with developing highly specific sensors and methods, aimed at identifying unique substances. The new availability of personal computing made it possible to apply pattern recognition techniques to complex measurement data.
The proposal was to have a general, broadly responsive sensor system and use pattern recognition to match measured ‘patterns’ to previously ‘seen’ patterns. This is analogous to how we smell, hence the name ‘electronic nose’. This is illustrated in the figure.
An important consequence of the concept is that substance, or mixtures of substances, can only be recognized after a calibration phase: in order to match a pattern, it must be known beforehand (‘seen’ before).
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e-Nose Technology
The philosophy of C-it is to not compete with the existing market, but to address a different niche. This is the currently non-existing niche of very cheap, low power, mass-producible and mass-employable electronic noses. The target is to have a tiny, battery operated electronic nose with consistent unit-to-unit properties thus enabling ‘calibrate on one unit, apply to all units’ methods. The latter is required to make mass-production and mass-employability feasible. The ultimate goal is to have a device small enough to fit and combine in a mobile phone and distribute ‘smelltones’ (downloadable calibration models).
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