Insect Olfaction as a Natural Blueprint of Gas Sensors?
نویسنده
چکیده
Biologically inspired sensory solutions utilize highly developed organs of perception that are evolutionary tuned towards compounds correlated to ecological functions. After millions of years of “survival of the fittest” insects, e.g., are trained to detect specific compounds that serve reliably as cues to find hosts and mating partners, or to avoid enemies and competitors. The multitude of insect species (>1,000,000) and their ecological interactions provide a vast range of possible biosensors based on natural sensory systems. Also biomimetic approaches can lead to various applications for tracking and monitoring of chemical compounds in environmental and industrial processes. Biosensors utilize organic components (e.g., proteins, cells, tissues, or organisms) within a technical appliance. The combination of technical devices with biological sensory units provides detectors which are superior to mere technical solutions in selectivity and sensitivity. For instance, by integrating insect antennae in the gate of a field-effect transistor (BioFET), volatile trace compounds are directly detectable in the ppb range. The complex biochemical detection system in the antenna of the insect serves as a selective detector for compounds that provide vital information about its environment. Thus, knowing the selectivity and sensitivity pattern enables us to design biomimetic semiconductor sensors utilizing the evolutionary experience of insects in combination with reliability and ruggedness of technical semiconductor gas sensors for highly specific gas-sensing tasks.
منابع مشابه
Synthesizing neurophysiology, genetics, behaviour and learning to produce whole-insect programmable sensors to detect volatile chemicals.
Insects have extremely sensitive systems of olfaction. These systems have been explored as potential sensors for odourants associated with forensics, medicine, security, and agriculture application. Most sensors based on insect olfaction utilize associative learning to "program" the insects to exhibit some form of behavioural response to a target odourant. To move to the next stage of developme...
متن کاملToward Nanometer-Scale sensing Systems - Natural and Artificial Noses as Models for Ultra-Small, Ultra Dense Sensing Systems
The development of highly sensitive, selective, reliable, and compact sensing systems to detect toxic chemical and biological agents is of great importance to national security. This paper examines the best such naturally occurring sensing system, the sense of smell or " olfaction, " as well as artificial sensing systems built to emulate the nose. The goal is to combine lessons learned from nat...
متن کاملThe Multi-Chamber Electronic Nose—An Improved Olfaction Sensor for Mobile Robotics
One of the major disadvantages of the use of Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) technology as a transducer for electronic gas sensing devices (e-noses) is the long recovery period needed after each gas exposure. This severely restricts its usage in applications where the gas concentrations may change rapidly, as in mobile robotic olfaction, where allowing for sensor recovery forces the robot to mo...
متن کاملEvolution of Insect Olfaction
Neuroethology utilizes a wide range of multidisciplinary approaches to decipher neural correlates of natural behaviors associated with an animal's ecological niche. By placing emphasis on comparative analyses of adaptive and evolutionary trends across species, a neuroethological perspective is uniquely suited to uncovering general organizational and biological principles that shape the function...
متن کامل