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Caltech Creates Electronic Nose

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tue Oct 23, 2007 03:38 AM
from the smells-like dept.
Biotech Science
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.'"
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Submission: CalTech Creates Electronic Nose by eldavojohn (898314)
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  • Why fix what isn't broken? (Score:4, Informative)

    by TheTopher (879626) on Tuesday October 23 2007, @03:49AM (#21082475) Journal
    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"
    • Wait... a student of *the* Prof. Nate Lewis of *that* Caltech?

      I feel obliged, I mean obligated, to ask, can I have your autograph?
    • 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/ [cstv.com] or to one of the California State University campuses http://www.calstate.edu/ [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 Ca
        • 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
          • Only if you're American ;)
            Is there another country that speaks English?

          • 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)

              • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                by teslar (706653)

                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

  • Artificial Nose (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sqrt(2) (786011) on Tuesday October 23 2007, @03:49AM (#21082481) Journal
    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 (Score:5, Interesting)

      by allcar (1111567) on Tuesday October 23 2007, @04:00AM (#21082531)
      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 (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Mathinker (909784) on Tuesday October 23 2007, @04:06AM (#21082555) Journal
      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).
    • 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: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by cashdot (954651)
      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!

    • 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".
      • 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 breathal

        • 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.

    • 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.

    • 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 [clarkvision.com] 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/ [gigapxl.org] ), the image processing power of the brain exceeds any of our current technology. I guess our eyes aren't quite obsolete yet. ;)

    • 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?

    • 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 [ieee.org]

  • Old news? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ledow (319597) on Tuesday October 23 2007, @03:53AM (#21082503) Homepage
    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.

  • Hold it in (Score:3, Funny)

    by doyoulikeworms (1094003) on Tuesday October 23 2007, @04:02AM (#21082543)
    Because futuristic elevators are going to be really awkward.
  • We got an electronic nose. All I want now is a robotic cow that grows all it's meat back after you slaughter it.
  • All together now:

    AWFUL!

  • Medical applications (Score:5, Interesting)

    by apodyopsis (1048476) on Tuesday October 23 2007, @05:02AM (#21082721)
    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 [nationalgeographic.com]

  • Now they can build the Smelloscope (Score:3, Funny)

    by Gar0s (323445) on Tuesday October 23 2007, @05:29AM (#21082815)
    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.

  • One step closer to Lt Cmr Data (Score:3, Interesting)

    by master_p (608214) on Tuesday October 23 2007, @05:45AM (#21082877)
    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 (Score:3, Funny)

    by Esion Modnar (632431) on Tuesday October 23 2007, @05:46AM (#21082879)
    is what I at first thought they had created. I was not impressed. Then I realized it was an electronic *nose*... Still not impressed.
  • 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.

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

  • Something similar (Score:3, Informative)

    by curious.corn (167387) on Tuesday October 23 2007, @07:54AM (#21083625)
    Something similar, the Libra nose [fi.cnr.it] has been developed in Italy, at the University of Rome "Tor Vergata". The article is slim on the transducer CalTech is using...
  • ...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.

  • Unwired Input (Score:3, Funny)

    by Doc Ruby (173196) on Tuesday October 23 2007, @09:30AM (#21084805) Homepage Journal
    Where's the cocaine transistor?
  • University of Texas came out with an electronic tongue 8 years ago: http://www.engr.utexas.edu/news/articles/19981026319/index.cfm [utexas.edu]

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

  • Is it secure? Can it be picked? (Score:3, Funny)

    by benow (671946) on Tuesday October 23 2007, @12:55PM (#21088187) Homepage Journal
    Sorry, couldn't resist.

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