Monitoring an odour in the environment with an electronic nose : requirements for the signal processing

Artificial olfaction system (the so-called electronic nose) is a very promising tool to monitor the malodour in the field. Usual measurement techniques of odour use human olfaction or conventional analytical techniques. The first category represents the real odour perception but is not applicable to measure continuously bad odours in the field. The second class of techniques gives the mixture composition but not the global information representative of the odour perception. The e-nose has the potentialities to combine "the odour perception" and the "monitoring in the field". However to be able to reach that goal, the signal processing has to be adapted to work in complex environment. The research group in Arlon has more than ten years experience in the measure of environmental malodours in the field. The paper presents the minimal requirements that the group considers as essential for artificial olfaction system to become successful for this application.