We built a tiny electronic nose that can beat a mouse at its own game

By Nik Dennler, PhD Graduate in Computer Science, Western Sydney University

Imagine a robot that can detect scents in the air and track down their sources as efficiently as a dog or a mouse. If realised, it could detect small wildfires in dense forests, find people buried in debris after an earthquake, or even hunt for truffles!

Our research team has brought this vision one step closer to reality, by creating a compact electronic nose capable of identifying odours within milliseconds.

In our study, the goal was to explore this artificial sense of smell, and test how fast we can extract valuable information about the environment from the air. We…

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