We’re sorry, something doesn't seem to be working properly.
Please try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, please contact support so we can address the problem.
Abstract
Previous research has shown that gas sensors can be used to classify odors when used in highly controlled experimental testing chambers. However, potential ubicomp applications require these sensors to perform an analysis in less controlled environments, particularly at a distance. In this paper, we discuss our design of uSmell—a gas sensor system for sensing smell in ubicomp environments—and an evaluation of its basic efficacy, effects of airflow and distance on classification accuracy, and in an example application. Our system samples an odor fingerprint from eight metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) gas sensors every second. It then processes the time series data to extract three features that highlight how time and distance affect the eight MOS gas sensors’ ability to react to the gas molecules released by an odor every 5 s; this generates 24 features in total that are then used to train a decision tree classifier. Using this approach, our system can classify a set of odors with 88 % accuracy when placed both in a small container with the samples and in open air 0.5–2 m from the odor samples. We also demonstrate its ability to classify odors in less controlled environments that might be targets for ubicomp applications by deploying it in a bathroom for a week. These results show the potential for applying this sensing toward the development of context-aware systems, such as lifelogging applications or those geared toward enhancing the sustainability of natural resources (e.g., an automatic dual-flush toilet that always uses an appropriate amount of water based on the user’s toileting activities).
This is a preview of subscription content,log in via an institution to check access.
Access this article
Subscribe and save
- Get 10 units per month
- Download Article/Chapter or eBook
- 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
- Cancel anytime
Buy Now
Price includes VAT (Japan)
Instant access to the full article PDF.







Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abe H, Yoshimura T, Kanaya S, Takahashi Y, Miyashita Y, Sasaki S-I (1987) Automated odor-sensing system based on plural semiconductor gas sensors and computerized pattern recognition techniques. Anal Chim Acta 194:1–9. doi:10.1016/s0003-2670(00)84755-8
Aishima T (1991) Aroma discrimination by pattern recognition analysis of responses from semiconductor gas sensor array. J Agric Food Chem 39:752–756. doi:10.1021/jf00004a027
Aishima T (1991) Discrimination of liquor aromas by pattern recognition analysis of responses from a gas sensor array. Anal Chim Acta 243:293–300. doi:10.1016/s0003-2670(00)82573-8
Alocilja EC, Ritchie NL, Grooms DL (2003) Protocol development using an electronic nose for differentiatingE. coli strains. Sensors J IEEE 3:801–805
Arduino (2013) Arduino website. In: Arduino.http://www.arduino.cc/. Accessed 3 Sep 2013
Arroyo E, Bonanni L, Selker T (2005) Waterbot: exploring feedback and persuasive techniques at the sink. ACM 1055059:631–639
Ballantine DS, Rose SL, Grate JW, Wohltjen H (1986) Correlation of surface acoustic wave device coating responses with solubility properties and chemical structure using pattern recognition. Anal Chem 58:3058–3066. doi:10.1021/ac00127a035
Barrett G (2004) Water conservation: the role of price and regulation in residential water consumption. Econ Pap J Appl Econ Policy 23:271–285. doi:10.1111/j.1759-3441.2004.tb00371.x
Beckmann C, Consolvo S, LaMarca A (2004) Some assembly required: supporting end-user sensor installation in domestic ubiquitous computing environments. In: Davies N, Mynatt E, Siio I (eds) Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Ubiquitous computing (Ubicomp ’04), Lecture notes in computer science, vol 3205. Springer, Heidelberg, pp 107–124
Bonanni L, Arroyo E, Lee C-H, Selker T (2005) Exploring feedback and persuasive techniques at the sink. Interactions 12:25–28. doi:10.1145/1070960.1070980
Borazio M, Van Laerhoven K (2012) Combining wearable and environmental sensing into an unobtrusive tool for long-term sleep studies. In: proceedings of the. 2nd ACM sight international health informatics symposium. ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp 71–80
Carrasco A, Saby C, Bernadet P (1998) Discrimination of Yves Saint Laurent perfumes by an electronic nose. Flavour Fragr J 13:335–348. doi:10.1002/(sici)1099-1026(1998090)13:5<335:aid-ffj753>3.0.co;2-f
Chen S-L, Lee H-Y, Chen C-A, Lin C-C, Luo C-H (2007) A wireless body sensor network system for healthcare monitoring application. In: IEEE Biomedical Circuits Systems Conference 2007 BIOCAS 2007, pp 243–246
Choe EK, Consolvo S, Jung J, Harrison B, Patel SN, Kientz JA (2012) Investigating receptiveness to sensing and inference in the home using sensor proxies. In: proc. 2012 ACM Conf. Ubiquitous Comput. ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp 61–70
Dubowsky S, Genot F, Godding S, Kozono H, Skwersky A, Yu H, Yu LS (2000) PAMM: a robotic aid to the elderly for mobility assistance and monitoring: a ldquo;helping-hand rdquo; for the elderly. In proceedings of the IEEE international conference on robotics and automation ICRA 00, vol 1, pp 570–576
Dutta R, Morgan D, Baker N, Gardner JW, Hines EL (2005) Identification of Staphylococcus aureus infections in hospital environment: electronic nose based approach. Sensors Actuators B Chem 109:355–362. doi:10.1016/j.snb.2005.01.013
Ehrmann S, Jüngst J, Goschnick J (2000) Automated cooking and frying control using a gas sensor microarray. Sensors Actuators B Chem 66:43–45. doi:10.1016/S0925-4005(99)00354-8
EPA (2011) EPA water conservation information page.http://www.epa.gov/oaintrnt/water/index.htm
Francesco FD, Lazzerini B, Marcelloni F, Pioggia G (2001) An electronic nose for odour annoyance assessment. Atmos Environ 35:1225–1234. doi:10.1016/s1352-2310(00)00392-7
Galdikas A, Mironas A, Šetkus A, Zelenin D (2000) Response time based output of metal oxide gas sensors applied to evaluation of meat freshness with neural signal analysis. Sensors Actuators B Chem 69:258–265. doi:10.1016/s0925-4005(00)00505-0
Gardner JW (1991) Detection of vapours and odours from a multisensor array using pattern recognition Part 1: principal component and cluster analysis. Sensors Actuators B Chem 4:109–115. doi:10.1016/0925-4005(91)80185-M
Gardner JW, Bartlett PN (2000) Electronic noses: principles and applications. Meas Sci Technol 11:1087
Gardner JW, Bartlett PN (1999) Electronic noses: principles and applications. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Gendron KB, Hockstein NG, Thaler ER, Vachani A, Hanson CW (2007) In vitro discrimination of tumor cell lines with an electronic nose. Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 137:269–273. doi:10.1016/j.otohns.2007.02.005
Gil Y, Wu W, Lee J (2012) A synchronous multi-body sensor platform in a Wireless Body Sensor Network: design and implementation. Sensors 12:10381–10394. doi:10.3390/s120810381
Goschnick J, Koerber R (2002) Condition monitoring for intelligent household appliances. Sensors Househ Appl 5:52–68
Harrison B, Consolvo S, Choudhury T (2010) Using multi-modal sensing for human activity modeling in the real world. In: Nakashima H, Aghajan H, Augusto J (eds) Handb Ambient Intell. Smart Environ. Springer, USA, pp 463–478
Hirobayashi S, Kimura H, Oyabu T (1999) Detection of human activities by inverse filtration of gas sensor response. Sensors Actuators B Chem 56:144–150. doi:10.1016/s0925-4005(99)00184-7
Hnat TW, Griffiths E, Dawson R, Whitehouse K (2012) Doorjamb: unobtrusive room-level tracking of people in homes using doorway sensors. In: proceedings of the 10th ACM Conference Embedded Network Sensor System ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp 309–322
Kappel K, Grechenig T (2009) Show-me: water consumption at a glance to promote water conservation in the shower. ACM 1541984:1–6
Kidd CD, Orr R, Abowd GD, Atkeson CG, Essa IA, MacIntyre B, Mynatt E, Starner TE, Newstetter W (1999) The aware home: a living laboratory for ubiquitous computing research. In: Streitz NA, Siegel J, Hartkopf V, Konomi S (eds) Coop. Build. Integrating Inf. Organ. Arch, Springer, pp 191–198
Kim S, Paulos E (2010) In air: sharing indoor air quality measurements and visualizations. ACM 1753605:1861–1870
Kim Y, Schmid T, Charbiwala ZM, Friedman J, Srivastava MB (2008) NAWMS: nonintrusive autonomous water monitoring system. In: proceedings of the 6th ACM Conference Embedded Network Sensor System ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp 309–322
Kinkeldei T, Zysset C, Münzenrieder N, Tröster G (2012) An electronic nose on flexible substrates integrated into a smart textile. Sens Actuators B Chem 174:81–86. doi:10.1016/j.snb.2012.08.023
Kobayashi Y, Terada T, Tsukamoto M (2011) A context aware system based on scent. In: proceedings of the 15th Annu. Int. Symp. Wearable Comput. ISWC, pp 47–50
Labreche S, Bazzo S, Cade S, Chanie E (2005) Shelf life determination by electronic nose: application to milk. Sens Actuators B Chem 106:199–206. doi:10.1016/j.snb.2004.06.027
Larson E, Froehlich J, Campbell T, Haggerty C, Atlas L, Fogarty J, Patel SN (2012) Disaggregated water sensing from a single, pressure-based sensor: an extended analysis of HydroSense using staged experiments. Pervasive Mob Comput 8:82–102. doi:10.1016/j.pmcj.2010.08.008
Lester J, Tan D, Patel S, Brush AJB (2010) Automatic classification of daily fluid intake. In: pervasive comput technol healthc pervasive health 2010 4th Int. Conf. -NO Permis, pp 1–8
Loutfi A, Broxvall M, Coradeschi S, Karlsson L (2005) Object recognition: a new application for smelling robots. Robot Auton Syst 52:272–289. doi:10.1016/j.robot.2005.06.002
Mann S (2003) Intelligent bathroom fixtures and systems: EXISTech corporation’s safebath project. Leonardo 36:207–210. doi:10.1162/002409403321921424
Marques L, De Almeida AT (2000) Electronic nose-based odour source localization. In: Proceedings of the 6th international workshop on advanced motion control. IEEE, pp 36–40
Matsuura S (1993) New developments and applications of gas sensors in Japan. Sens Actuators B Chem 13:7–11. doi:10.1016/0925-4005(93)85311-w
Moriizumi T, Nakamoto T, Sakuraba Y (1992) Pattern recognition in electronic noses by Artificial Neural Network models. Sens Sens Syst Electron Nose E212:217–236
Di Natale C, Davide FAM, D’Amico A, Nelli P, Groppelli S, Sberveglieri G (1996) An electronic nose for the recognition of the vineyard of a red wine. Sensors Actuators B Chem 33:83–88. doi:10.1016/0925-4005(96)01918-1
Paolesse R, Alimelli A, Martinelli E, Natale CD, D’Amico A, D’Egidio MG, Aureli G, Ricelli A, Fanelli C (2006) Detection of fungal contamination of cereal grain samples by an electronic nose. Sensors Actuators B Chem 119:425–430. doi:10.1016/j.snb.2005.12.047
Pathange LP, Mallikarjunan P, Marini RP, O’Keefe S, Vaughan D (2006) Non-destructive evaluation of apple maturity using an electronic nose system. J Food Eng 77:1018–1023. doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2005.08.034
Perera A, Pardo T, Sundi T, Gutierrez-Osuna R, Marco S, Nicolas J (2001) IpNose: electronic nose for remote bad odour monitoring system in landfill sites. In: Proceedings of the 8th conference Eurodeur. Paris, France, pp 19–21
Persaud K, Dodd G (1982) Analysis of discrimination mechanisms in the mammalian olfactory system using a model nose. Nature 299:352–355. doi:10.1038/299352a0
Pornpanomchai C, Jurangboon K, Jantarasee K (2010) Instant coffee classification by electronic noses. In: Proceedings of 2010 2nd International Conference on Mechanical and Electronics Engineering (ICMEE), 1–3 Aug 2010, vol 1, pp V1-10–V1-13
Pornpanomchai C, Suthamsmai N (2008) Beer classification by electronic nose. In: Proceedings of the 2008 international conference on wavelet analysis and pattern recognition, 30–31 Aug 2008, vol 1, pp 333–338
Ramalho O (2000) Correspondences between olfactometry, analytical and electronic nose data for 10 indoor paints. Analusis 28:207–215. doi:10.1051/analusis:2000280207
Roberts PJW and W (2002) Turbulent Diffusion. In: H. Shen AC (ed) Environ. Fluid Mech.—Theor. Appl. ASCE Press, Reston, Virginia, pp 7–45
Seong Y, Narumi T, Akagawa T (2008) Automatic data extracting software for retrieval of lifetime photos using scent information. ACM SIGGRAPH ASIA 2008 Posters
Shaham O, Carmel L, Harel D (2005) On mappings between electronic noses. Sensors Actuators B Chem 106:76–82. doi:10.1016/j.snb.2004.05.039
Starner T, Auxier J, Ashbrook D, Gandy M (2000) The gesture pendant: a self-illuminating, wearable, infrared computer vision system for home automation control and medical monitoring. In: Fourth Int. Symp. Wearable Comput, pp 87–94
Strengers YAA (2011) Designing eco-feedback systems for everyday life. ACM 1979252:2135–2144
Tanabe T (1982) Cooking utensil controlled by gas sensor output and thermistor output. US Patent 4,316,068, 16 Feb 1982
Tikk K, Haugen J-E, Andersen HJ, Aaslyng MD (2008) Monitoring of warmed-over flavour in pork using the electronic nose—correlation to sensory attributes and secondary lipid oxidation products. Meat Sci 80:1254–1263. doi:10.1016/j.meatsci.2008.05.040
Varshney U (2007) Pervasive healthcare and wireless health monitoring. Mob Netw Appl 12:113–127. doi:10.1007/s11036-007-0017-1
Wilson AD, Baietto M (2009) Applications and advances in electronic-nose technologies. Sensors 9:5099–5148. doi:10.3390/s90705099
Wilson AD, Lester DG, Oberle CS (2005) Application of conductive polymer analysis for wood and woody plant identifications. For Ecol Manag 209:207–224. doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2005.01.030
Witten IH, Hall MA (2011) Data mining practical machine learning tools and techniques. Morgan Kaufmann, Burlington
Zhou T, Wang L, Jionghua T (2008) Pattern recognition of the universal electronic nose. In: Second international symposium on intelligent information technology application, 20–22 Dec 2008, vol 3, pp 249–253
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by an NSF CAREER GRANT #0846063 and an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship for the first author. We thank Frank Li at Google and Garnet Hertz at UCI for fabrication help, the STAR Group at UCI for providing valuable feedback on drafts. Peter Thomas, Anind Dey, and the anonymous PUC reviewers have greatly strengthened this paper, and for that we are grateful.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Department of Informatics, Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA
Sen H. Hirano & Gillian R. Hayes
Department of Software and Information Systems, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA
Khai N. Truong
- Sen H. Hirano
You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar
- Gillian R. Hayes
You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar
- Khai N. Truong
You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar
Corresponding author
Correspondence toSen H. Hirano.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hirano, S.H., Hayes, G.R. & Truong, K.N. uSmell: exploring the potential for gas sensors to classify odors in ubicomp applications relative to airflow and distance.Pers Ubiquit Comput19, 189–202 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-014-0770-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
Share this article
Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:
Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.
Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative