Artificial Noses

By David R. Walt, Shannon E. Stitzel, Matthew J. Aernecke

Electronic olfaction aims to mimic mammalian systems.

Biology Chemistry Technology

This Article From Issue

January-February 2012

Volume 100, Number 1

Page 38

DOI: 10.1511/2012.94.38

View Issue

For human beings, a good sense of smell might not be as coveted a trait as sharp eyesight or hearing. The 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant singled out smell as the sense that was “most dispensable” because “the pleasure coming from the sense of smell cannot be other than fleeting and transitory.”

Figure 1. Working by scent alone, a hunting dog is able to track the path of a stuffed pheasant. The animals were in darkness until the dog found the pheasant. The path of the dog (red) and the pheasant (yellow) are shown in this time-lapse photograph. It’s not an easy task to quantify a scent or measure it in a visible manner, but researchers have been making great strides with artificial-nose systems that they hope will accomplish these goals. They have taken inspiration from the adaptability of mammalian olfaction, including the canine system, in developing odor-sensing devices that can identify scents based on the unique pattern of responses they generate in an array of sensors.

Louie Psihoyos/Science Faction/Corbis

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