Caltech Creates Electronic Nose

eldavojohn writes "Researchers have created an electronic nose that can detect odor and identify which odors are a concern to it. From the article, 'The Lewis Group a division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Caltech have a working model of an electronic nose. The efforts of Caltech scientists has led to an array of simple, readily fabricated chemically sensitive conducted polymer film. An array of broadly-cross reactive sensors respond to a variety of odors. However, the pattern of differential responses across the array produces a unique pattern for each odorant. The electronic nose can identify, classify and quantify when necessary the vapor or odor that poses a concern or threat.'"

Comments

Why fix what isn't broken?

[TheTopher]

As a student at Caltech in Prof. Nate Lewis' Chemistry class, I feel obligated to ask why the correct spelling of "Caltech" from the article was converted into the incorrect spellings of "CalTech" and "Cal Tech"? I realize that we don't conform to the usual abbreviation for Tech schools but it's a "little t" for "Caltech"

Re:Why fix what isn't broken?

[TheTopher]

I get the joke but the situation here is that "Caltech" is the official abbreviation of the Institute's name. It's as accurate as referring to MIT as MassTech.

Re:Why fix what isn't broken?

[IBBoard]

Only if you're American ;)

TBH I don't think most of us can tell the difference with capitalisation, or don't care. There's various other things like the MOD/DOD that shouldn't be capitalised in certain ways, but people still do.

As for the nose, how do they know that what is smells is correct? Surely it's a bit like colour in that it is entirely subjective as to how it is represented: does everyone see red in the same way as I do? Do roses smell the same to everyone? That means they've either made a chemical sensor with a lookup table or they've made one hell of a clever robot that can perceptualise and abstract away from the chemicals to the 'actual' smell.

Not that it's not an achievement to make a chemical sensor for smells, just that it might not be quite the same as a nose.

Re:Why fix what isn't broken?

[baldass_newbie]

Only if you're American ;)
Is there another country that speaks English?

Re:Why fix what isn't broken?

[sco08y]

Wait... a student of *the* Prof. Nate Lewis of *that* Caltech?

I feel obliged, I mean obligated, to ask, can I have your autograph?

Re:Why fix what isn't broken?

[DerCed]

Because everyone understands it anyway? It's really not that much of a big deal, mate.

Re:Why fix what isn't broken?

[teslar]

As for the nose, how do they know that what is smells is correct? Surely it's a bit like colour in that it is entirely subjective as to how it is represented: does everyone see red in the same way as I do? Do roses smell the same to everyone?

No, this is not subjective. The same rose will give off the same chemicals regardless of who does the smelling. The same colour red has always the same wavelength regardless of who does the looking. Differences in perception only start in the brain (and sensory organs) but we can still have a clear definition of 'smells like roses' in terms of constitutent chemicals and 'is red' in terms of wavelength.

How the electronic nose really 'perceives' this is of lesser importance as long as it can reliably and correctly identify the odours and tell us about them. So you can easily test that the nose works like you expect by exposing it to random mixes of odours and compare the response of the nose to the (known) actual composition of the odour.

Re:Why fix what isn't broken?

[Threni]

> As for the nose, how do they know that what is smells is correct? Surely it's a bit like colour in that it is entirely subjective as to how it is
> represented: does everyone see red in the same way as I do? Do roses smell the same to everyone? That means they've either made a chemical sensor
> with a lookup table or they've made one hell of a clever robot that can perceptualise and abstract away from the chemicals to the 'actual' smell.

Surely you can stick something in front of the nose, have it tell you what it is, and that way you'll confirm that you share perceptions with whoever trained the nose!

Re:Why fix what isn't broken?

[drerwk]

As an alumnus I like to point out why the Cal Tech usage is in addition to being wrong, also confusing. Cal, when used to refer to institutions of higher learning in California, always(?) refers to either the University of California e.g. Cal Berkeley, Cal(R) Bears, http://calbears.cstv.com/ or to one of the California State University campuses http://www.calstate.edu/ with particular attention to Cal Poly. I sure wish I had a Cal Poly sweatshirt given the number of times people have confused Caltech and Cal Poly. In any case, Caltech is in neither the Cal State University System, nor the University of California System.

Re:Why fix what isn't broken?

[lostguru]

last i checked Caltech was in america

Re:Why fix what isn't broken?

[IBBoard]

If my geography serves me right then it might even be in California ;)

I know it's in America, but that doesn't mean that every comment should be written in American. Relise is correct English (even if Firefox currently seems to disagree), while realize is correct American. It's called international diversity of language.

Re:Why fix what isn't broken?

[IBBoard]

No, this is not subjective. The same rose will give off the same chemicals regardless of who does the smelling. The same colour red has always the same wavelength regardless of who does the looking.

But is the chemical the smell, and is the wavelength the colour?

It's a bit philosophical, but a chemical mix of odours detected by a sensor isn't necessarily acting as a nose depending on what you want an "electronic nose" for.

I also wonder how it works on things where the 'known' composition can vary. Will it mis-identify them like some other robot did identifying a reporter's hand as bacon (or something similar)?

Re:Why fix what isn't broken?

[teslar]

But is the chemical the smell, and is the wavelength the colour?

Well, yes, since these represent the necessary and sufficient stimuli for you to perceive the smell as the smell of roses or the colour as the colour red. I don't think there's a need to go philosophical on this point.

What you are really talking about, I think, is the experience of perceiving a smell or odour. Then it's very clear that everything depends on who is doing the smelling/looking and nobody is going to argue that electronicc noses experience these stimuli in the same way we do. So yes, an electronic nose would have a priori problems with qualifying smells in subjective ways (smells good, bad, refreshing, stale) unless you specifically train it with lots of examples from all those categories. But that's not really the point of an electronic nose, it's more about detecting toxins and perhaps reverse-engineering certain odours (e.g. just what did the chef put into that lovely sauce of his?).

I also wonder how it works on things where the 'known' composition can vary. Will it mis-identify them like some other robot did identifying a reporter's hand as bacon (or something similar)?

It depends on what you want to do. If you want to identify a complex odour based on the mix of chemicals you've encountered, then yes, that can happen.
When you design such a system, you take lots of samples from all the inputs that vary so that you get a good idea of the possible variation for every given input (so you train the system with 50 roses, tulips and pieces of bacon instead of just one each). If you were to plot the inputs in a multidimensional space (one dimension per chemical you can detect, and the metric is the concentration of said chemical) you would thus not get e.g. a single point for the odour 'rose', another single point for the odour 'tulip' and a third point for the odour 'bacon'; you would get entire clouds of points.
If you're lucky, there will be plenty of empty space between the clouds and then you can easily train a classifier to discriminate between the odours (sometimes as simply as computing the distance between the odour you detect to the centre of each cloud and going for the closest cloud). If there is some overlap, you can still train a classifier and will be alright most of the time, just sometimes you'll have to qualify your ouput with a probability if your input falls into the overlap region (80% chance it's a rose, 20% it's a tulip). If there is heavy overlap, you're pretty much screwed unless you can think of a funky nonlinear transformation of the input which achieves a better separtion of the the different classes.

So yeah, misclassifications can happen, it depends on your input space and how the classifier deals with it. Especially novel stimuli can be a problem, I'd imagine.

Re:Why fix what isn't broken?

[3.1415926535]

veryone who went to Caltech was a student of Nate Lewis. He teaches the required freshman introductory chem class.

Re:Why fix what isn't broken?

[mfnickster]

Mod parent 'funny'!

Oh, wait...

Re:Why fix what isn't broken?

[sonamchauhan]

As a non-native speaker, I thought I just learnt a new word...

But it wasn't ...
http://m-w.com/dictionary/Relise

Re:Why fix what isn't broken?

[IBBoard]

That would explain why it didn't like it :D

Realise is a correct English word, though, and Firefox's English dictionary thinks it is correct (even if it doesn't think Firefox is)

Artificial Nose

[sqrt(2)]

I've always thought it interesting that creating an artificial nose (sense of smell) has lagged so far behind the other senses. Vision, that's easy, cameras have sharper resolution than our pathetic biological eyes. Hearing, again, sensitivity of microphones has easily surpassed human ability. There's the sense of touch, but we can cheat and make sensors that detect resistance to motion, being able to feel and discern texture is harder however. Sense of smell is probably the most abstracted and subjective, so it's no wonder it's the most difficult to replicate with technology. Most of the artificial "nose" tech is just checking for the presence of certain chemicals in the air.

Re:Artificial Nose

[allcar]

Similarly, use of odour in entertainment is way behind the more "mainstream" senses. There are a few museums that have used smell as part of there displays - The Imperial War Museum in London is a good example. The 1st World War trench exhibition uses artificial smells to bring you that delightful blend of excrement and cordite.
However, in general films and games have steered clear of the sense of smell. In gaming, visuals and sound are a given. Vibrating controllers try to deal with the sense of touch. Smell (and taste) have been ignored. As usual, it will probably be porn that leads the way - just think of the possibilities!

Re:Artificial Nose

[Mathinker]

It's also probably the sense which has the greatest genetically based phenotypical variation. To put it simply, there's probably more average difference between "normal" individuals' olfactory experiences than those of sight, hearing, taste, and touch.

That might just be because we rely so little on smell, what is accepted as normal has expanded with respect to this sense (as opposed to color-blindness, for example).

Re:Artificial Nose

[marcello_dl]

If tech were superior to our pathetic biological vision (including the realtime signal processing around it, of course) I'd be able to point a photo or video camera to a scene and click and have the same result of what mt eyes see. This is not really the case.

On audio we're kind of there though.

Re:Artificial Nose

[cashdot]

It is off-topic, but I could not resist: I don't think that cameras and microphones have surpassed the human capabilities. Show me a microphone that has the same dynamic range as the human ear. Or a vision system that has the same 'postprocessing' capabilities as our visual cortex. Resolution and sensitivity are not the only performance indicators!

Re:Artificial Nose

[phozz bare]

As usual, it will probably be porn that leads the way - just think of the possibilities! Like, ew?

Re:Artificial Nose

[ceroklis]

Most of the artificial "nose" tech is just checking for the presence of certain chemicals in the air

You are a genius. In case you didn't know your biological nose does the same. It is almost the definition of "nose".

Re:Artificial Nose

[Joe Tie.]

I think in large part it's due more to the fact that we really don't have much of a sense of smell when compared to other mammals. It's a bit like a blind cave fish trying to create good tests for vision when that concept is almost totally alien to it.

Re:Artificial Nose

[El Lobo]

OTOH there are many studies that prove that our first memories as a child are almost always associated to a certain arome/smell/odor/fragrance/stink, whatever....

Re:Artificial Nose

[cheater512]

Expensive doesnt mean that it doesnt exist.

Re:Artificial Nose

[crontabminusell]

Vision, that's easy, cameras have sharper resolution than our pathetic biological eyes. I wondered about this, so I decided to look it up. At http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/eye-resolution.html the writer seems to sum up the topic pretty nicely. It seems that, while our eyes have probably been surpassed by technology when looking at resolution only (think http://www.gigapxl.org/ ), the image processing power of the brain exceeds any of our current technology. I guess our eyes aren't quite obsolete yet. ;)

Re:Artificial Nose

[camperdave]

What the poster was trying to get at is that current electronic noses are designed to detect only a narrow range of chemicals, and are unable to detect anything else. For example, an electronic nose which is able to detect the smell of carrots could be brought into a kitchen where someone is frying up some bacon, baking some bread, and wiping up a spill with lemon scented cleanser, and it would not detect a thing. Of course, that's the way they are made. The most common example would be roadside breathalysers, which detect alcohol.

The Caltech nose is designed to be a broad "spectrum" device. It would be able to smell the bacon, bread, and lemon cleanser. Of course, they are not the first. NASA has one, as does the University of Warwick.

The only question I have is this: If a person who can't see is blind, and a person who can't hear is deaf, what is a person who can't smell called?

Re:Artificial Nose

[mcmonkey]

Most of the artificial "nose" tech is just checking for the presence of certain chemicals in the air.

What do you think natural "nose" tech does?

Re:Artificial Nose

[mcmonkey]

The most common example would be roadside breathalysers, which detect alcohol.

Not really. A breathalyser is not an artifical nose for smelling alcohol.

The only question I have is this: If a person who can't see is blind, and a person who can't hear is deaf, what is a person who can't smell called?

A person who cannot smell is anosmic, or is an anosmiac.

Re:Artificial Nose

[Matt Edd]

Thank you for explaining the joke made by the GP. I don't think anyone would have figured it out on their own.

Re:Artificial Nose

[cecille]

A few places have tried this type of thing already. One the professors at my university developed an e-nose a while ago mostly to look at emissions from agricultural processes.

paper abstract

Re:Artificial Nose

[saltydogdesign]

Actually, this might be an opportunity for the business sector to lead. If someone could invent and electric butt, this could be used to automate brown-nosing.

Re:Artificial Nose

[Garabito]

just think of the possibilities!
Goatse? Tubgirl?

Re:Artificial Nose

[davidsyes]

Gives a new meaning to "sounds like shit"....

Re:Artificial Nose

[whrick]

The problem is that no one has an understanding of how the receptors in your nose sense smells. It has always been assumed to be shape - based, like neurotransmitters and receptors, but there is no clear evidence to support that. Some scientists, most recently Luca Turin, think that it is based on molecular vibration from the electron rings (warning: gross oversimplification!), much like a spectroscope. There are some really interesting recent books about this subject as it relates to perfume.

Re:Artificial Nose

[davidsyes]

What's all that Fsck'ing noise?

Re:Artificial Nose

[davidsyes]

Mwo? (Huh?)

(I'm gonna leap a bit off topic, too.)

It COULD just be that microphones and cameras lack an associative library/databank comparable to the human brain and powers of coherent and random recall. Data is just data, but experiences make data MEAN something. Once computers learn to synthesize information ON THEIR OWN, we better watch out. They're ALMOST there. Hook up sound, sight, smell and intelligence with mobility, and something wonderful (bionics for the physically challenged) can happen or something terrifying (robotic cannons go loose and kill people, and the recent one in Africa was a non-mobile, non-intelligent type...).

I think a clue that robotics experts seem to miss or aren't disclosing is that machines built to emulate human walking and balance need to have telescoping/self-jacking legs. They need to have gyros and be raised like babies, and put on moving platforms, provided with sensors, and "pain sensors".

Once they fall and feel "pain", they won't like it. Once they negotiate successfully, they'll likely be experts. Once they see evil in a human's eye toward another, they'll either avoid or KILL such humans. Let us hope cameras and microphones are not LIED to by human programmers.

It's not so hard to give the robots worm-gear leg extension capabilities. The REAL fear is that they may have an INSATIABLE desire for knowledge of all THAT and more THAN we know. The movie robots and gizmos do what the special effects teams MAKE them do. Real robots only do what (so far) we LET them do (by bad engineering or by crippled engineering).

Re:Artificial Nose

[camperdave]

"What is a person who can't smell called?"
--- He goes by the nickname of 'Stinky'.

I thought that's what you called a person who DOES smell.

Old news?

[ledow]

Am I the only person (in the UK) who saw the Tomorrow's World back in the days of Phillipa Forester or earlier where they had something IDENTICAL to this and were "on the verge" of commercialising it.

I seem to remember something about they discovered the material being tested for aircraft use until they realised that the strong odours of a busy airport made the properties of the material change, then they put it into an electronic nose. I also remember a demo where the machine detected the difference between "normal" and "rancid" mayonnaise by smell alone.

It seems that this is one of those inventions that just keeps popping up but nobody ever really finds a commercial use for it that can make all the development costs worthwhile.

Re:Old news?

[aproposofwhat]

Am I the only person (in the UK) who saw the Tomorrow's World back in the days of Phillipa Forester...

When Phillipa was on screen, who cared about the technology?

Re:Old news?

[stevey]

True, although Tomorrows World was notorious for two things:

• Live demonstrations which didn't work.
• Demonstrations of technology which would be with us "real soon now".

Re:Old news?

[funkatron]

You forgot number 3, showing the clip where they demonstrated the CD just to prove that they actually got something right once.

Re:Old news?

[OlRickDawson]

I've read about different electronic noses before, yes. My impression of this article is that this is an improved version, with a wider range of detection, and cheaper to make.

Re:Old news?

[Mr. Underbridge]

Am I the only person (in the UK) who saw the Tomorrow's World back in the days of Phillipa Forester or earlier where they had something IDENTICAL to this and were "on the verge" of commercialising it.

This is in fact old news. The first publication from this research group regarding chemical sensing was in 1995. I don't think any major breakthroughs have been made recently.

See http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/92/7/2652

That's not to say it isn't interesting - I have experience in the chemical sensing field so I think it's cool - but it's definitely not news.

Re:Old news?

[kilgortrout]

It's not only in the UK, electronic noses have been around for a long time. I remember seeing one at an alumni event at the Illinois Institue of Technology many years ago:

http://electrochem.cwru.edu/ed/encycl/art-n01-nose.htm

And that was a miniaturized, improved one of one that they had built in the 1970s that was about 3 meters long. From what I remember from that tour, what's happened over the years is increasing miniaturization, better sensor arrays and better algorithms for identifying substances. Basically, this is an old technology; a gas chromatograph can be considered an "E-Nose" in the larger sense and CO detector in your home is a specialized form of E-Nose.

Re:Old news?

[mindriot]

As some of the other posts indicate, there have been a few approaches to building electronic noses. Another one worth mentioning is the "Karlsruhe Micro-Nose" (PDF, English on pages 3–4) which uses an array measuring conductivity over a temperature gradient, resulting in sensoric fingerprints for different smells (see the examples on page 4).

Re:Old news?

[simong_oz]

Leeds University developed the bloodhound sensor - an electronic nose - in 1995, now owned by Scensive Technologies.

http://www.scensive.com/

Re:Old news?

[tyroneking]

I've always wanted to sue Tomorrows World for the unrealised-future depression from which I now suffer ... I still have to eat breakfast instead of those neat little pills they demonstrated, still have to pay freakin' nPower for my heating when I was promised geothermal energy, and I still can't roll to work in a large plastic ball or in a mini-plane or a personal hovercraft. So far I have been unable to move on with my life, or develop meaningful relationships because of this. ;)

Hold it in

[doyoulikeworms]

Because futuristic elevators are going to be really awkward.

Smellin' Llewellyn...

[Datamonstar]

We got an electronic nose. All I want now is a robotic cow that grows all it's meat back after you slaughter it.

But...

[daniorerio]

does it run linux?

Re:Pull my finger...

[somersault]

Whoever smell'd it dealt it

Re:Pull my finger...

[LiquidCoooled]

Whoever made the rhyme did the crime.

(as my son gleefully informed us the other day)

How does it smell?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

All together now:

AWFUL!

Re:How does it smell?

[ThirdPrize]

Boom, Boom.

Medical applications

[apodyopsis]

It is well known that dogs keen sense of smell can detect illness and cancers. Lets hope this thing can be turned into something sensitive enough and cheap enough for widespread medical use. This could save lives.

for the interested: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/01/0112_060112_dog_cancer.html

Re:Medical applications

[xednieht]

Eh - I wouldn't hold my breath so to speak.
Long before medical applications emerge from this we'll probably be exposed to more dubious, and fishy applications of this technology.
Locker room interviews will not only be in HD tv but will feature surround-smell as well.
Not only can you see the girl puking in the Exorcist you'll be able to smell it as well.
Oh yeah... and by the way your porn watching days at the office are over lmao.

Some things are just better left un-discovered.

Re:Pull my finger...

[nospam007]

Whoever smell'd it dealt it
____

I'll wait for the inexpensive fart detector to tell the dealer.

Re:Application

[ThirdPrize]

I have heard stories like this in the past where they are designed to be used by wine makers or perfumiers. Chances are though, they will only come to market when every baggage conveyor belt in every airport needs one.

Now they can build the Smelloscope

[Gar0s]

FRY: This is a great, as long as you don't make me smell Uranus. Heh heh.
LEELA: I don't get it.
PROFESSOR FARNSWORTH: I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all.
FRY: Oh. What's it called now?
PROFESSOR FARNSWORTH: Urectum.

Re:Now they can build the Smelloscope

[Joe the Lesser]

[Prof. Farnsworth is searching for Bender with his Smelloscope]
Leela: Anything yet, professor?
Professor Hubert Farnsworth: I'm afraid the Smelloscope can't locate Bender. His fragrance is too mild. It's being overwhelmed by local sources.
[Everyone looks at Zoidberg]
Dr. Zoidberg: Hooray! Now I'm the center of attention.

One step closer to Lt Cmr Data

[master_p]

If all the electronic vision/sound/touch/smell data could be put in a computer which had a simple program of recalling reactions according to those data, we could have the foundations for an electronic brain.

And if the reactions are driven to motors which could move body parts, then we are one step closer to making an android.

Electronic Noise

[Esion Modnar]

is what I at first thought they had created. I was not impressed. Then I realized it was an electronic *nose*... Still not impressed.

Michael Jackson

[psychicsword]

Michael Jackson could use a new one.

Yup, a decade at least

[Colin Smith]

I actually worked in the lab where they developed the machine. UMIST in Manchester.

They did commercialise it. The technology is used all over the place.

http://chemse.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/30/suppl_1/i252
http://www.wordspy.com/words/noseonachip.asp

Of course, I'm sure Caltech can patent it can sue the bastards into oblivion.

Can it smell Cancer

[JamesRose]

I'm serious, dogs can smell some types of cancer (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/01/0112_060112_dog_cancer.html) (including lung cancer) there have been instances of dogs scratching at people's legs, and when they go to doctors there are malignant melanomas. It'd be interesting to see if this can be replicated and used as a medical device.

Re:Can it smell Cancer

[Mr. Underbridge]

It'd be interesting to see if this can be replicated and used as a medical device.

It's been done. In most cases the dogs are still far more sensitive, but in some cases the device is still sensitive enough. One exception is detection of biogenic amines, which are markers for kidney failure among other things. For those, specific types of sensors are actually more sensitive than the dogs by a fair margin.

The bad news

[ZoneGray]

The good news is, scientists have developed a robotic nose. The bad news is, it's a dog's nose, so it robotically sniffs your butt.

The ball's in MIT's court.

[jpellino]

We can only imagine what they'll build for the CalTech nose to sniff...

Old and long time commercial.

[GeekDork]

As seen on CSI: http://www.smithsdetection.com/eng/1383.php

Caltech - Reinventing the wheel ever since.

Re:Old and long time commercial.

[Dr.Who]

The work of Cyrano Sciences http://www.smalltimes.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?ARTICLE_ID=267768 commercialized the 1990's work at Caltech. Cyrano Sciences was acquired by Smiths Detection in 2003 http://www.rusticcanyon.com/portfolio/cmp_cyrano.html.

Roomba manners

[ShannaraFan]

Great. My dog finally stopped sniffing the crotch of everyone who visits my house. Now my Roomba is going to start.

CSI?

[setrops]

Didn't I already see this on CSI? nick wanted this new gadget but Grissom said they could not afford it. he ends up using it in a case and in the end Grissom orders it. /shrug

It would depend...

[AltGrendel]

...on how often they reload the Mucus Module (TM).

Obligatory

[ozbird]

"My dog has no nose."

"How does it smell?"

"Terrible!"

Something similar

[curious.corn]

Something similar, the Libra nose has been developed in Italy, at the University of Rome "Tor Vergata". The article is slim on the transducer CalTech is using...

Not original

[jamieswith]

I was working on an almost identical system in the UK literally 10 years ago... and I know we have patents on it... I wonder if they took care of the saturation issues... Still nice to see someone else picking up on the work though...

Re:Slow news day?

[Dunbal]

FIRST POST!!!

I think you may be missing a step here around...

[Empiric]

...identify, classify and quantify...

if ((sensor1 > 25)&&(sensor2 > 75))
{
substance1detected = TRUE;
}

...

if (substance1detected)
{
substancearray[1]++;
}

...

call DumpSubtanceList(substancearray);


What's with all the overly-hopeful anthropomorphization lately on Slashdot? I thought this place was more geared toward IT professionals than those likely to be impressed with hype targeting the general public.

Yes, but...

[proxy318]

Can it smell fear?

So tell me...

[Taleron]

Will the electronic tongue that can taste be programmed with Lisp?

Oh. No *i*, see?

[djasbestos]

I thought they said "electronic noise" and I was like "I've been doing that for almost 10 years now." I guess I don't have any insight, as I'm not an olfactory maven...

Unwired Input

[Doc Ruby]

Where's the cocaine transistor?

Real questions...

[pruneau]

To start brazenly: this was the subject of my PhD (e-mail me if you want references) I presented in 96, and this kind of things was already old news at the time, but it's like other subject in science. The press keeps re-"discovering" it now and then.

Now I do not mean to underestimate what was achieved, but the problems we had when I was studying the matter was principally one of sensor drift over time. You can slap a bunch of gas sensors together, study their various reactions to various "odor" stimulus, and even get to identify those with various processing techniques, including neural nets.

But the crux of the problem was that the sensor response varied greatly in time, rendering the signal processing useless over time. Unless a re-calibration of the whole system was done all over again.

Do someone close to the research team (or with enough time to read) knows whether some advances have been made in that direction ?

meh.

[bodrell]

University of Texas came out with an electronic tongue 8 years ago: http://www.engr.utexas.edu/news/articles/19981026319/index.cfm

I think they've developed a nose since then, but can't find a good link.

Re:Pull my finger...

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

"Smelt?" I dunno... Sounds fishy to me.

Electronic or Organic

[Greyfox]

A nose by any other name would still smell...

It's wrong in the article, too

[IdahoEv]

The article has it twice correctly as Caltech and once as Cal Tech (up near the top).

Bugs me too, dude, but I think this is a battle we are going to lose, long term. Even the City of Pasadena has roadsigns pointing to campus that spell it as two words.

Yes, old news

[IdahoEv]

I don't know about Tomorrow's World, but I know that Nate Lewis has been doing this for at least ten years, because I remember seeing presentations about it my first year of grad school, way back when (1997). At one point he and other Caltech people even spun off a company, Cyrano Systems, to market the thing. And *that* was at least six years ago.

Reading TFA, I didn't see any info in the article that was different from what I saw presented a decade ago. I'm sure they've improved the e-nose a ton in those ten years, but TFA sure didn't give any specifics, it just treated the e-nose as a new idea. Which it isn't.

Re:Pull my finger...

[Mister Whirly]

Whoever smelled it Dell'd it?

Dude! You're getting a fart!

we have found a witch, may we burn her?

[nih]

this isn't my nose it's a false one!

Eletronic COCAINE!!!

[tsbiscaro]

I will make some eletronic cocaine and get filthy rich!

Bad Idea

[Hoi Polloi]

If it got too good you'd never be able to pretend it wasn't you.

Dave: "For cry'n out loud Steve, what the hell did you eat!?"
Nose 9000: "Sorry Dave, it wasn't Steve, I have traced the odor trail back to your buttocks."
Dave: "What? How!?"
Nose 9000: "Even though you tried to fan it and walk away from it I was able to pinpoint the sound too."

Hygene

[Big Hairy Ian]

Does this mean us techy type are going to have to bathe more often? :)

The PhysOrg article is old news...

[dcraigw]

The PhysOrg article is a bit misleading. I work in the Lewis Group on a solar energy project but am somewhat familiar with the nose research. Work on the electronic nose in the group has been ongoing since at least 1994 (one of the first articles our group published on it is here), and a more accurate (but outdated) description of the research is available on the group site. Several other groups have been doing similar research for some time. Current work in the group includes the development of mathematical models to describe sensor response, the use of various nanomaterials as sensors, the development of spatiotemporal sensor arrays, and the creation of piezoelectric chemical vapor sensors. The current research is interesting and exciting, but the tone of the PhysOrg article would have been more approprate had it been written 10-15 years ago.

Cool! A Minnie Driver/Anne Hathaway love scene.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> an array of simple, readily fabricated chemically sensitive conducted polymer film.
> An array of broadly-cross reactive sensors respond to a variety of odors. However,
> the pattern of differential responses across the array produces a unique pattern for each odorant.

"And you can see right here, look at response matrix 74-delta-zed, that's the one that detects 'smells like ass'."

Patent question

[HTH NE1]

Not the typical patent question, but rather relating to consequences of invention: will this device make scents patentable? Currently you cannot patent a particular scent (e.g. perfume, cologne, bouquet of wine), but what if the uniqueness of a scent was quantifiable through the use of just such a device?

I, for one...

[my_left_nut]

welcome our new cloned electronic overlord.

Been there done that.. and smelled beer.

[NewmanKU]

Previous posters were right when saying this has been done before. In fact, I've purchased the Cyranose 320 made by Smiths Detection for a project at the University of Kansas I was working on. We were actually going to use it for authentication. Instead the project ended and we configured it to distinguish between different beers. It worked great!

Is it secure? Can it be picked?

[benow]

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Finally

[wcrowe]

Finally, we can now answer that age-old question which has plagued mankind since the dawn of time: "Who farted?"

Think of the possibilities...

[Kazoo the Clown]

Law enforcement setting up camera devices that trigger at the scent of pot smoke.
High School bathrooms that do the same with tobacco.

I want to put a budget one outside my window to turn on a light when it detects my friendly neighborhood skunk (skunks don't like the light)-- as he rather likes the grubs that hang out in the patch of moss under my window. Right now when I'm woken up at 3AM by the pungent smell, I have to turn on the light manually...

Richie Rich

[steffens]

Sounds like the SmellMaster 5000.

Richard Rich Sr.: [on Prof. Keenbean's Smellmaster 9000] Glasses, electronic aids and surgery help us see and hear better. Isn't it time we had something to help us SMELL better?

Regina Rich: We already do, dear. It's called Chanel.

I could use 1 of these

[smudge]

I for 1 have no sense of smell. Mock me if you must. There are corrective lenses for my near or far sighted friends and hearing aids for the auditory impaired. But naught for me!

Think about the last time you had a really bad cold and couldn't smell anything. Did food taste good? Could you smell a pretty flower? Could you even tell if the gas was leaking and you were gonna die in your sleep? The poster with the skunk problem would like to sleep through the night ... I'd like to know if there was a skunk right BEHIND ME.

Now if only they could make it as innocuous as glasses or a hearing aid.

But...

[Trogre]

How did they know what to make it out of?

</obscurereference>