This New Artificial Nose Could Help People Detect Diseases, Hazardous Gases, And Food That’s Starting To Spoil
We all know that dogs have a strong sense of smell. Their noses are so sensitive that they are capable of sniffing out cancer and certain infections.
Other creatures that can identify the smell of diseases include rats, ants, locusts, and roundworms. Unfortunately, humans are not on the list. Our noses just aren’t sensitive enough.
However, the development of a new artificial “nose” could now make it possible for humans to detect diseases, hazardous gases, and food that is just beginning to spoil. The nose was designed with antenna technology.
“By giving the antenna sensor functions, the existing infrastructure can be used in new areas of application. This has been one of the main motivations for investigating whether antennas can be used for these purposes,” said Michael Cheffena, a professor of telecommunications at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Gjøvik.
Previous attempts to make “electronic noses” did not have the advantage of utilizing already existing technology. They also faced challenges that antenna technology has the potential to overcome.
According to Cheffena, other electronic noses have hundreds of sensors that are coated with different materials. For that reason, they require a lot of energy to operate, and they are expensive to make.
In comparison, the new nose consists of just one antenna and one type of coating. So not only is it more sustainable to run and cheaper to manufacture, but it is also highly accurate.
The antenna sensor had an accuracy rate of 96.7 percent when it was tested for distinguishing between various gases.
It does this by transmitting radio signals at a range of different frequencies and then analyzing how the signals are reflected back.
sementsova321 – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
The behavior of the signals changes based on the types of gases that are present, creating unique patterns associated with certain volatile organic compounds, which are gases commonly found in the air.
All living organisms release volatile organic compounds as a way to protect themselves or communicate with each other.
Since so many of the products and materials we use in everyday life emit volatile organic compounds, it’s difficult to determine the difference between significant and insignificant ones. It gets even harder when isomers become part of the equation.
“Isomers are chemical compounds that have the same molecular formula but where the atoms are bound together in slightly different ways,” said Yu Dang, the lead author of the study and a research fellow at NTNU’s Department of Manufacturing and Civil Engineering.
“These compounds have long been a challenge for this type of sensor technology. Even the most sophisticated e-noses consisting of many different sensors struggle with them.”
Even with these tricky compounds, the new antenna sensor works well. So far, the technology has been tested on damaged fruits and meats. If the algorithms were to be adjusted, the researchers believe the sensor could detect diseases.
The study was published in Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical.
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