A robot that can smell: New Israeli tech could be a game-changer

“The principle we have demonstrated can be used and applied to other senses, such as sight and touch…The sky is the limit.”

By World Israel News Staff

A new technological development by Tel Aviv University has made it possible for a robot to smell using a biological sensor.

The sensor sends electrical signals as a response to the presence of a nearby odor, which the robot can detect and interpret.

The researchers successfully connected the biological sensor to an electronic system, the university explained in a press release. Using a machine-learning algorithm, they were able to identify odors with a level of sensitivity 10,000 times higher than that of a commonly used electronic device.

The researchers believe this technology could also be used to identify explosives, drugs, disease and more.

The biological and technological breakthrough was led by doctoral student Neta Shvil of Tel Aviv University’s Sagol School of Neuroscience, Dr. Ben Maoz of the Fleischman Faculty of Engineering and the Sagol School of Neuroscience, and Prof. Yossi Yovel and Prof. Amir Ayali of the School of Zoology and the Sagol School of Neuroscience. The results of the study were published in the prestigious journal Biosensor and Bioelectronics.

“Man-made technologies still can’t compete with millions of years of evolution. One area in which we particularly lag behind the animal world is that of smell perception,” Maoz and Ayali note.

“An example of this can be found at the airport where we go through a magnetometer that costs millions of dollars and can detect if we are carrying any metal devices. But when they want to check if a passenger is smuggling drugs, they bring in a dog to sniff him.

“In the animal world, insects excel at receiving and processing sensory signals. A mosquito, for example, can detect a 0.01 percent difference in the level of carbon dioxide in the air. Today, we are far from producing sensors whose capabilities come close to those of insects.”

The researchers point out that, in general, our sensory organs, such as the eye, ear and nose – as well as those of all other animals – use receptors that identify and distinguish between different signals. Then, the sensory organ translates these findings into electrical signals, which the brain decodes as information.

The challenge of biosensors is in the connection of a sensory organ, like the nose, to an electronic system that knows how to decode the electrical signals received from the receptors, they explain.

“We connected the biological sensor and let it smell different odors while we measured the electrical activity that each odor induced. The system allowed us to detect each odor at the level of the insect’s primary sensory organ. Then, in the second step, we used machine learning to create a ‘library’ of smells,” Yovel said, explaining the process.

“In the study, we were able to characterize 8 odors, such as geranium, lemon and marzipan, in a way that allowed us to know when the smell of lemon or marzipan was presented. In fact, after the experiment was over, we continued to identify additional different and unusual smells, such as various types of Scotch whiskey.

“A comparison with standard measuring devices showed that the sensitivity of the insect’s nose in our system is about 10,000 times higher than the devices that are in use today.”

“Nature is much more advanced than we are, so we should use it,” Maoz says. “The principle we have demonstrated can be used and applied to other senses, such as sight and touch…The sky is the limit.”

In future work, the researchers plan to give the robot a navigation ability to allow it to localize the odor source and later, its identity.