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Published September 2004 | public
Journal Article

Comparisons between Mammalian and Artificial Olfaction Based on Arrays of Carbon Black−Polymer Composite Vapor Detectors

Abstract

Arrays of broadly cross-reactive vapor sensors provide a man-made implementation of an olfactory system, in which an analyte elicits a response from many receptors and each receptor responds to a variety of analytes. Pattern recognition methods are then used to detect analytes based on the collective response of the sensor array. With the use of this architecture, arrays of chemically sensitive resistors made from composites of conductors and insulating organic polymers have been shown to robustly classify, identify, and quantify a diverse collection of organic vapors, even though no individual sensor responds selectively to a particular analyte. The properties and functioning of these arrays are inspired by advances in the understanding of biological olfaction, and in turn, evaluation of the performance of the man-made array provides suggestions regarding some of the fundamental odor detection principles of the mammalian olfactory system.

Additional Information

© 2004 American Chemical Society. Received 19 November 2003. Published online 29 June 2004. Published in print 1 September 2004. The investigations described herein were performed by an extremely talented group of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. These people, cited as coauthors in the reference list, along with generous support from the ARO, DARPA, DOE, NASA, NIH, and NSF, have made this work possible.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 24, 2023