Electronic Noses: From Advanced Materials to Sensors Aided with Data Processing

Artificial olfaction, i.e., e-nose, plays a critical function in robotics by mimicking the human olfactory organ that can recognize different smells that correlate with a range of fields, including environment monitoring, disease diagnosis, public security affairs, agricultural production, food industry, etc. The advances in the artificial olfaction (electronic nose) technology and its applications are concisely reviewed herein. Three main elements are investigated and presented, with an emphasis on the emerging sensors and algorithm of the artificial neural network in the relevant fields. The first element is the diverse applications of e-nose in medical care, food industry, environment monitoring, public security affairs, and agricultural production. The second element is the investigation of the sensors in e-nose and representative and promising advances, which is the building block of e-nose through mimicking the olfactory receptors. The third element is the introduction to the algorithm of the artificial neural network to serve in the recognition of the pattern of odors (i.e., their chemical profiles). Promises and challenges of the separately reviewed parts and the combined parts are presented and discussed. Ideas regarding further orientation and development of the e-nose system are also considered.