An odour sensing robot draws inspiration from the insect world

Although the sensing of chemical signals is extremely important for most living creatures there have been few attempts to transfer this capability to robotic systems. In order to operate effectively in the variable and unstructured real world environment insects employ many strategies. Generating and detecting odours is the basis of several of these strategies. It seems certain that similar techniques can be implemented to improve the competence of robotic systems. This paper describes the development of sensors and algorithms which will allow odour sensing to be applied to robotic systems. Currently a robotic and has been built to act as a testbed for the odour sensors and to investigate biologically inspired control algorithms. Design of this robot and results of odour trail following experiments are presented in this paper.