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from the keep-that-guy-away-from-my-cocaine dept.
Meet the E-Nose That Actually Sniffs
In addition to sniffing, their device, named TruffleBot, measures small pressure and temperature changes—physical characteristics that can be used to identify a smell. For example, here's a fun fact for your next happy hour: Beer odors cause a slight decrease in air pressure and a slight rise in temperature due to the physical properties of the alcohol vapor.
In a paper presented last week in Cleveland at the BioCAS2018 conference, Rosenstein's team showed that the addition of this new information in an e-nose raises the device's accuracy from 80 percent to 95 percent.
E-noses come in a variety of architectures, but most rely exclusively on chemical sensors, such as metal oxides or conducting polymers. The TruffleBot goes a step further: A 3.5-inch-by-2-inch circuit board that sits atop a Raspberry Pi contains eight pairs of sensors in four rows of two. Each sensor pair includes a chemical sensor to detect vapors and a mechanical sensor (a digital barometer) to measure air pressure and temperature.
Then comes the sniffing bit: Odor samples are pushed across these sensors by small air pumps that can be programmed to take up puffs of air in a pattern. "When animals want to smell something, they don't just passively expose themselves to the chemical. They're actively sniffing for it—sampling the air and moving around—so the signals that are being received are not static," says Rosenstein.
In an analysis of nine odors, including those from cider vinegar, lime juice, beer, wine, and vodka (and using ambient air as a control), the team found that chemical sensors alone accurately identified an odor about 80 percent of the time. The addition of sniffing improved accuracy to 90 percent. Throw in the pressure and temperature readings and the e-nose recognized an odor 95 percent of the time.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday October 30 2018, @10:07PM (4 children)
Correct outcome, 80% of the time.
In laboratory conditions without cross contamination.
And with a process that should get more ambiguous with each new scent compared because of narrowing criteria for success?
Now I'm no fancy statistician, but shouldn't this be functionally useless in the real world, once we talk about dozens of simultaneous scents, and directionality? And that's assuming the actual sensitivity isn't just the highly detectable by conventional means varying ph of those various acids?
Is this anything?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday October 30 2018, @10:21PM
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30 2018, @10:57PM
Yes this is something. Add in mechanical teeth to chew up raccoons, a servo-controlled tail wagger and a hydrogen sulfide emitter for authentic silent stinkers and you've got the makings of a realistic robotic dog.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Wednesday October 31 2018, @03:19AM
Relax, we're probably still a decade away from a fart tracking drone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 31 2018, @05:09PM
"Anything that relies on statistics as a proof, is inherently wrong."