Identification of pollutant gases and its concentrations with a multisensor array

We have modeled the performance of an electronic nose, composed by tin dioxide commercial sensors, addressed to identify gases of relevance in polluted atmospheres. We analyze the possibilities of determining both the concentration and composition of a mixture of gases containing carbon monoxide, ethanol, methane or isobutane. We have modeled the theoretical response function of the array when sensing a mixture of gases, based on data from these commercial sensors, and designed an appropriate pattern recognition scheme for the simultaneous identification of a given gas and its concentration in the mixture. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.