What is it about?
Insects use their antennae to detect smells in the air, and scientists are now using this ability to help flying robots track odours. This study explores how drones can use real insect antennae as ultra-sensitive smell detectors. However, because drones create electrical and mechanical noise, it can be difficult to separate the actual smell signals from unwanted interference. To solve this, researchers developed a new algorithm that cleans up the signals, making odour detection more accurate. This breakthrough could help flying robots follow odour trails, which may be useful for search and rescue, environmental monitoring and other real-world applications.
Featured Image
Photo by Dose Media on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Many animals rely on their sense of smell to find food, avoid danger or locate mates. If flying robots could do the same, they could be used for important tasks like detecting gas leaks, finding missing people or monitoring air pollution. However, teaching drones to smell' is challenging because their sensors often pick up too much background noise. This study introduces a new way to filter out the noise and improve odour detection using real insect antennae. By making odour-tracking technology more accurate, this research brings us closer to developing drones that can navigate using smell, just like insects do in nature.
Perspectives
Nature has already designed some of the most efficient and sensitive sensors—like the antennae insects use to detect smells. By integrating real insect antennae with flying robots, we are taking a step towards developing drones that can 'smell' their surroundings. This could open up exciting possibilities, from helping search-and-rescue teams locate missing people to detecting gas leaks or monitoring air quality. The biggest challenge has always been filtering out unwanted noise, but this study shows that a smart algorithm can solve that problem. In the future, we may see flying robots that can follow odour trails just as naturally as insects do, making them even more useful for real-world applications.
Dr Bluest Lan
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Dropping Counter: A Detection Algorithm for Identifying Odour-Evoked Responses from Noisy Electroantennograms Measured by a Flying Robot, Sensors, October 2019, MDPI AG,
DOI: 10.3390/s19204574.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
