Detection of humans buried in rubble: An electronic nose to detect human body odor

Abstract

As far as scent is concerned, little technology has been developed in the field of search and rescue (SAR) operations. In this paper, the use of electronic noses (e-noses) in SAR, more specifically search operation, is discussed. The e-nose consists of an array of TGS tin-oxide gas sensors, whose signals are digitized, and then fed into an artificial neural network (ANN) for odor classification. Odor samples are collected from odiferous items such as egg, prawn, fish, cigarette, urine, feces, sweat, saliva, garlic, and onion. The gas sensing system developed is able to detect and identify volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from known single sources. However, VOCs from known multiple sources were not conclusively identified.