On the performance of gas sensor arrays in open sampling systems using Inhibitory Support Vector Machines

Chemo-resistive transduction presents practical advantages for capturing the spatio-temporal and structural organization of chemical compounds dispersed in different human habitats. In an open sampling system, however, where the chemo-sensory elements are directly exposed to the environment being monitored, the identification and monitoring of chemical substances present a more difficult challenge due to the dispersion mechanisms of gaseous chemical analytes, namely diffusion, turbulence, and advection. The success of such actively changeable practice is influenced by the adequate implementation of algorithmically driven formalisms combined with the appropriate design of experimental protocols. On the basis of this functional joint-formulation, in this study we examine an innovative methodology based on the inhibitory processing mechanisms encountered in the structural assembly of the insect's brain, namely Inhibitory Support Vector Machine (ISVM) applied to training a sensor array platform and evaluate its capabilities relevant to odor detection and identification under complex environmental conditions. We generated - and made publicly available - an extensive and unique dataset with a chemical detection platform consisting of 72 conductometric metal-oxide based chemical sensors in a custom-designed wind tunnel test-bed facility to test our methodology. Our findings suggest that the aforementioned methodology can be a valuable tool to guide the decision of choosing the training conditions for a cost-efficient system calibration as well as an important step toward the understanding of the degradation level of the sensory system when the environmental conditions change.