Estimating gas concentration using a microcantilever-based electronic

Journal Article · Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2010 · Digital Signal Processing

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsp.2009.10.026· OSTI ID:1082024

Leis, J. W. ^[1]; Zhao, Weichang ^[2]; Pinnaduwage, Lal A ^[2]; Gehl, Anthony C ^[2]; Allman, Steve L ^[2]; Shepp, A. ^[3]; Mahmud, K. ^[3]

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1. University of Southern Queensland
2. ORNL
3. Triton Systems, Inc.

This paper investigates the determination of the concentration of a chemical vapor as a function of several nonspecific microcantilever array sensors. The nerve agent dimethyl methyl phosphonate (DMMP) in parts-per-billion concentrations in binary and ternary mixtures is able to be resolved when present in a mixture containing parts-per-million concentrations of water and ethanol. The goal is to not only detect the presence of DMMP, but additionally to map the nonspecific output of the sensor array onto a concentration scale. We investigate both linear and nonlinear approaches the linear approach uses a separate least-squares model for each component, and a nonlinear approach which estimates the component concentrations in parallel. Application of both models to experimental data indicate that both models are able to produce bounded estimates of concentration, but that the outlier performance favors the linear model. The linear model is better suited to portable handheld analyzer, where processing and memory resources are constrained.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: Work for Others (WFO)
• DOE Contract Number: DE-AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1082024
• Journal Information: Digital Signal Processing, Vol. 20, Issue 4; ISSN 1051-2004
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

Pattern recognition
electronic nose
microcantilever