A Novel Multisensor Detection System Design for Low Concentrations of Volatile Organic Compounds

Abstract

In this article, we investigate a novel multisensor odor detection system (electronic nose) for low-concentration volatile organic compounds (VOCs). In order to break through the limitation for detecting low concentration VOCs, we design a conformal symmetric preconcentration unit structure based on the finite element method. A typical application for exhaled breath is developed to investigate the proposed scheme. The designed preconcentration system can increase the concentration of the concentrated substance, so that the sensor can detect it. Besides, we choose the alveolar gas at the bottom of the human lung, which can better represent the health status of the human body, to carry out the effectiveness test of the system. In order to combine the gas acquisition system with the preconcentration system, this article further designs a cost-effective alveolar gas collection device by a doubled adaptive pulsewidth modulation (PWM) operation. Finally, the effectiveness of the preconcentration system is judged by the detection results of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). We also use the classical algorithm to classify lung cancer and nonlung cancer patients, which proves the effectiveness of our proposed integrated design system and shows the potential of practical application of the system.