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Overview
Electronic noses are generally defined as
instruments that mimic the mammalian sense of smell.
They generally comprise; an array of
sensors of some type; the electronics to interrogate
those sensors and produce the digital signals, and
finally; the data processing and user interface
software.
The entire system being a means of
converting complex sensor responses into an output that
is a qualitative profile of the odour, volatile or
complex mixture of chemical volatiles that make up a
smell.
Conventional electronic noses are not
analytical instruments in the classical sense and very
few claim to be able to quantify an odour. These
instruments are first ‘trained’ with the target odour
and then used to ‘recognise’ smells so that future
samples can be identified as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ smells. |
