'Electronic nose' could aid in rescue missions

Researchers have developed an 'electronic nose' that allows multiple robotic platforms to follow the path of certain odours and could aid search and rescue missions when natural disasters strike.
Developed by Blanca Lorena Villarreal when she was a postgraduate student at the Tecnologico de Monterrey (ITESM) in Mexico, the olfactory system is based on artificial intelligence algorithms that enable the detection of the scent of alcohol.
With some modifications to the system and the algorithms it can recognise odours and toxic gases or elements.
"In rescue missions it might recognise blood, sweat or human urine," Villarreal said.
In the first phase of development, Villarreal wondered about how living things carry out the process of odour recognition and then transferred that knowledge to the mathematical sciences, and thus translated it into algorithms.

"We note that, biologically, animals perceive the direction of an odour using two characteristics: it comes at different concentrations to the nostrils, and, because it is appreciated with a time difference. These two factors can identify from which a certain aroma comes," she said.

This is how chemical sensors that mimic the nostrils, and which are separated by a septum, will perceive specific odours.
The data, said Villarreal, is sent by radio to a computer, where it is analysed in real time to know the origin and direction of the aroma, using programmed algorithms.
"Unlike other olfactory systems, this has the feature that in each cycle of ventilation the air chamber empties, making sensors ready for a new measurement," she said.

Thus, the technology takes only one cycle to detect that there has been a change of direction in the path of smell, which enables the robot to perform the tracking faster.