ELECTRONIC-NOSE BASED
ON EMBEDDED TECHNOLOGY
GAURAV SHARMA
Deptt. of Electronics and Commn., Engg.,ASET,
Amity University
Noida, INDIA
Email-gauravsharma1906@gmail.com
JAI PRAKASH GODARA
Sr.lecturer,ASET
Amity University
Noida ,U.P.India
Email:jprakash@amity.edu
ABSTRACT
This paper adduces the ontogenesis of an embedded
system which can sense and pursue the odour. To affirm
the idea we are using gas sensors to espy the odour,
analog distance sensors to equivocate the idea of dead
ends and an embedded technology for the pertinent
functioning and operation of the robot . Algorithm is
also provided for a proper detection of encumbrance
and the appropriate proclivity towards the odour source.
Keywords: odour tracking; electronic nose; embedded
systems
I. INTRODUCTION
Odour sensing and tracking has been a riveting field
for researchers and scientists for many years because
of the large number of applications it provides
[1].Early electronic nose prototypes were colossal and
complex laboratory systems. Soon after their
appearance in the market place, these cumbersome
instruments underwent there first step towards the size
reduction. They were replaced by smaller and more
effectual desktop systems [2] .
Mammalian olfactory systems were developed trying
to mimic the olfactory tracking abilities of moths and
dogs but they had limited applications since they are
not adapted to work with toxic odours for long
enough. It was also affected by subjective or objective
circumstances. Hence researchers have tried to build
up an artificial olfactory system to replace these
mammalian olfactory systems. Persuad and Dodd did
inaugural work in the research of e-nose in
1982[3].There has been a lot of work done in this field
since 1982 and in today‟s time the e-nose has become
an efficient and remarkable tool to evaluate the
essence of aroma during the quality control process of
food and beverages [4].E-noses have been employed
ABHISHEK SHARMA
Student Member SAE
Deptt. Of Mechanical And Automation., Engg.
MAIT,GGSIPU,
Delhi, INDIA
Email-abhi2309@gmail.com
in for public safety[5],environment
protection[6],disease diagnostics etc[7]
Basically, e-nose is a collection of sensors cerebrated
on an electronic platform that is made use of for
detection of changes in the odour concentration in an
area. An e-nose takes the samples from the air as an
analog value, converts this into electrical signals
which are then processed to identify odour.
An e-nose can present different advantages to both
environment and society. The most prominent
advantage of an e-nose is that it helps in the safety of
people by recognizing hazardous and poisonous gas
leakage. This system can also help in gathering
pivotal information about the space by detecting and
tracking different kinds of odours present in the space.
Emission of harmful gases from the factories can also
be kept under check through this robot. It can also
help in finding missing people by detecting their
aroma [8].
With the advancement in the technology and with the
work of humans side by side, the development in this
field are immense and worth noticing. Hence
considering the potential application in this field, the
present work details the development of an e-nose on
embedded technology used for tracking odour.
II. HARDWARE ARCHITECTURE
The proposed system is operated by an embedded
platform and desktop pc(central command unit). The
hardware incorporates Atmega128 AVR
microcontroller which takes the readings from the
sensor and controls the motors. A serial
communication via RS232 is provided to acquire the
 data. Figure2.1 describes the design of e-nose A. The Central Command Unit: Desktop PC is
controlled by Atmega 128 microcontroller and a PC used for data acquisition from the
microcontroller. The central command unit
consists of a remote computer. The remote
computer is equipped with a serial COM
port and Hyper-terminal. The digital data
from the e-nose is displayed on the Hyper-
USB-ASP
Left LCD terminal screen of the computer
Motor Displa
y B. ATmega 128, a high performance low power
AVR 8bit microcontroller,16Mhz ,RAM
Sensors Pb 4Kb,flash program memory 128 bytes,10 bit
. A/D converter ,motor driver L293D.
A/D Atmega 128
C. A GH-312 gas sensor is used for detecting
PC E-Prom
Vcc RX TX Pb odour, IR sensors for detecting the obstacles
Uart comm and two dc motors for the manoeuvring of
the e-nose.
Right
D. Motor Controller: The e-nose uses L293D
Supply 12V Regulator 5V Motor motor driver to control the motors. The
L293D is a quadruple high current half H
GND driver. It provides bi-directional current up to
600mA at 4.5V to 36V
Fig2.1;Block diagram of the e-nose system
E. The 2.4 GHz Radio frequencies Texas
The above proposed system is controlled by Atmega Instruments CC2500: Wireless communication
128 microcontroller functioning on 16 Mhz including between the Central Command Unit and the
an A/D converter that allows to control 8 independent Mobile e-nose takes place through the Texas
channels out of which some can be used by odour Instruments CC2500 module. The CC2500 is a
sensors and some by IR sensors to detect the obstacles low-cost 2.4 GHz transceiver designed for
on the path and the dead end. Communication very low-power wireless applications. The
between the microcontroller and central command circuit is intended for the 2400-2483.5 MHz
unit takes place through RS232 protocol using ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) and
CC2500 wireless module. The USBASP is employed SRD (Short Range Device) frequency band.
to program the microcontroller in such a way that it CC2500 provides extensive hardware support
can sense the odour and subjugates the e- for packet handling, data buffering, burst
nose.Figure2.2 is a photograph of the embedded transmissions, clear channel assessment, link
platform used. quality indication and wake-on-radio. The
main operating parameters and the 64-byte
transmit/receive FIFOs of CC2500 are
controlled via an SPI interface. The circuit can
be effectively used for data transmission
wirelessly.

Fig 2.2;Embedded Platform

The summary of the hardware components used are:

Fig2.3 Gh-312 gas sensor
 F. Camera: A webcam is mounted on the robot
to provide the central command
unit(Desktop pc) the exact position of the e-
nose. This feature will help the user to
determine the explicit position of the e-nose
and of the odour source

Fig2.6The schematic diagram of the control unit

III. SOFTWARE DESCRIPTION

Fig2.4;Webcam has been mounted on the e-nose
The embedded software to operate this system is
implemented on the e-nose. Subroutines of sensor
These are some schematics of the
signal digitization, motor control, LCD, serial data
applications
acquisition and odour tracking algorithm are
developed in C language and compiled with WIN-
AVR cross compiler. USBASP programmer installs
hex file to the flash memory of At-mega 128.The
operation of the software for odour tracking is shown
in the flowchart

Start

Is Odour
No
present?
Fig2.4The schematic diagram of UART comm.
Yes

Turn onYes
motors

No

Is Odour Is Dead
No end
source
reached? reached?

Yes

Yes
Fig2.5The schematic diagram of Motor Driver L293D Stop
 Timer interrupt IV. EXPERIMENTS

The programming is done on programmer‟s notepad

.WinAVR is the compiler and Ponyser is the
Take odour and distance programmer. The readings of the odour was taken on
sensor reading hyperterminal on computer system.

Turn on the motors in the

direction of odour

Is User
No press t

Yes
Give the current odour
readings
Fig4.1The screenshot of the compiler used to program
the controller
The Atmega-128 microcontroller is programmed in
such a way that for only the particular range of values
Return the e-nose responses

Fig3.1;Flowcharts of the algorithm used for the

navigation and control purposes

According to the flowchart the e-nose through GH-

312 gas sensor will depict whether the odour is
present or not. If it is present the motors will be
switched on and e-nose will start moving towards the
odour source and if it is not present the e-nose is not
going to respond. It is going to check whether the
odour source has been reached. If it has, then the task
of the e-nose gets completed and if it receives a
negative response then the e-nose is going to check if
a dead end is encountered. If the e-nose does not Fig4.2 Odour readings in the test environment on
encounter the dead end it will again start checking Hyper-terminal
whether the odour source is present or not and if the
odour is present it will move towards it and if an According to the readings shown on the Hyper-
obstacle is confronted the e-nose will take a corrective terminal the system is programmed in such a way that
action. it approaches the odour source conveniently without
getting obstructed by different obstacles in the path.
In an interrupt block we are taking the odour and
distance readings from the e-nose with the help of V. CONCLUSION
CC2500 wireless module. This will keep the control
unit updated with the current specific value of The e-nose is developed using embedded technology,
distance and odour and will turn the motors in the odour sensors and analog distance sensors. Through
direction of that odour. If the user presses„t‟ from the experiments it can be determined that the system has
command unit the system will provide user with the responded well towards the odour source and is able
current odour and distance sensor readings to track it avoiding different obstacles. Though the
resources were limited but the preliminary research
shows that with more advancement like in the
increase of the number of odour sensors the system
will easily be able to track different hazardous gases.
VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors thank Prof Dr H.Kar,MNNIT ,Allahabad
for his invaluable guidance.
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