Can the electronic nose shoulder this heavy responsibility?
What can an electronic nose do?
E-cigarettes must be known to everyone, but little is known about the advanced commodity of electronic nose. It's not everyone's fault. After all, smell is metaphysics. I still can't explain why some people think coriander tastes like spanking.
The definition of smell is more full of metaphysics. It says:
Smell is the feeling that olfactory cells in human nasal cavity are stimulated by volatile substances to produce nerve impulses and enter the cerebral cortex along the olfactory nerve, including the intensity, type and comfort of odor.
But except for special reasons, most of the evaluation criteria for odor are unified. Smelly smelly, fragrant definitely fragrant, but the recognition is different.
So since there are standards, different smells should have their own "fingerprints".
A smell is made up of many chemicals, so the smell is a "complex". To identify it, we need to find its core characteristics (that is, the main chemicals).
Through unremitting efforts, dozens of different organic polymer sensors can be designed for high-quality electronic noses. Each sensor will produce different current changes corresponding to a chemical substance. Dozens of sensors will be combined into a special "fingerprint" and the smell will be recognized.
For example, at the beginning of April this year, Intel announced that their Loihi neuromorphological research chip had made a further breakthrough. This smart nose can recognize 65,438+00 different smells, including ammonia, acetone and methane. Intel intends to use it to monitor and detect harmful substances, and even conduct quality control in factories.
Loihi is Intel's fifth generation self-learning neuromorphological research and test chip, which was launched on 20 17 1 1. This technical breakthrough is based on 72 chemical sensors.
Can electronic nose be used in automobile field?
Since it can capture the smell, it can be used in the automobile field in theory.
But this kind of equipment is obviously difficult to apply to production cars.
There is no reason for manufacturers to install a set of monitoring equipment for themselves, and the installation cost of this thing is immeasurable, and the return on investment is far less than adding more advanced fabrics to seats and handrails.
And even if tens of thousands of detectors are put into use, its detection ability is still very limited. Take OMX-SRM as an example? Shen Rong Odor Detection Electronic Nose Handheld Odor Detector 0.0-999, which can only detect ethanol, methyl mercaptan and xylene.
Even so, there are still some OEMs who are optimistic about this project.
At present, some OEMs have begun to build electronic nose research projects. For example, Geely Automobile intended to invest in it in 20 17, and listed it as an auxiliary equipment in the product development stage. Other economists have not found public information, but as far as I know, not only Geely Automobile, but also companies such as Pan-Asia Technology Center and Guangzhou Automobile Research Institute have research tendencies in this field.
But as mentioned above, 10 odor alone needs great efforts to capture. There are many kinds of nonmetallic materials used in automobile interiors, such as polymers, and their sources are complex, which leads to an endless stream of odorous substances and types. Unless a rich database is established, it is difficult to have further practical application.
VOC≠ "Smell": At present, VOC only controls benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene, styrene, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and acrolein, all of which have smells, but the smell in the car also includes other volatile organic compounds, such as ethers, lipids, alcohols, ammonia, alkanes and olefins. Food, sweat and other life smells are even more.
At present, the evaluation methods of automobile odor are mainly based on the subjective evaluation of odor evaluator. For the most common material grade odor assessment, the basic test flow is shown in the following figure.
Have you noticed that in recent years, major OEMs are setting up their own Golden Nose teams and widely publicizing them, in fact, they are telling everyone that their personnel detection ability is excellent.
As for the first car company launched by Golden Nose Group, it is said to be Volvo (early 2000). How do you evaluate the smell of Volvo interior?
Of course, although this evaluation method is different because of human subjectivity, its accuracy can meet the requirements after professional training and multi-person evaluation, so we don't have to criticize why the technology has not been upgraded.
But in retrospect, it was too cruel for the members of the Golden Nose Group. Who wants to smell harmful gases?
I have to say that car research and development is sometimes like this. It is indeed an objective existence to exchange life for technology. I think this is one of the reasons why some OEMs try their best to promote the Golden Nose project.
Have we started the operation yet?
A few days ago, a patent application of Ford Motor was made public, with the general idea of applying electronic nose technology to online car service, hoping to provide customers with basic information such as color, brand, vehicle type, license plate number and the evaluation of car smell.
Not to mention the date of mass production, I think this strategy is right. The quality service of the network car is the general trend, so should we consider whether the passengers in the car can accept it? Or is it that users can't stand some peculiar smells?
To this end, the system developed by Ford will use environmental sensors to determine the nature of the odor inside the car, and compare such odor and odor concentration with the threshold list set by the online car user. Its characteristics are somewhat similar to those of OMX-SRM mentioned above, but more intelligent and networking technologies are added.
This is only a technical patent, and it is still far from landing.
Of course, in addition to this advanced electronic nose, there is also an electronic nose focusing on particle detection, which has been distributed.
Accurately speaking, particulate matter does not belong to the category of "odor", but because it can also cause human discomfort, it is also very important to evaluate it. Now the popularity of vehicle-mounted PM2.5 air purification system is related to this.
For example, Jinan installed an "electronic nose" for taxis to sniff out particulate matter (but for the air outside the car).
In an interview in September, 20 18, Sun Ningning, deputy director of Jinan Environmental Grid Supervision Center, said: "At present, there are 300 taxis in Jinan * * * equipped with monitoring equipment called electronic noses, of which 200 are within the expressway around the city, and 100 are installed in taxis in various counties. The monitoring equipment is installed on the top light of the taxi, and the data is uploaded every 3 seconds. Real-time monitoring of PM 10 and PM2.5 data on the road sections where taxis pass. "
In the "Jinan Environment" APP, in the "Road Air" column, I found the data about particulate matter monitoring, which is clear and clear, and the update frequency is quite high (1h once). I think this practice is worth popularizing.
The figure on the left is the data of near 1h, and the figure on the right is the data of only 24 hours.
Ashton tubercle
Because of the cost, limited database accumulation and other reasons, it is foreseeable that this advanced product, electronic nose, can only exist as a front-end technology. Good technology must have a good reason to land. Now it seems that the objectivity, safety and excellent recognition ability of electronic nose are favorable factors to support the development of this technology.
Now, it seems that controlling the odor in the car can only rely on the self-discipline ability of the manufacturer.
The good news is that the national six emission standards have forced the air quality inside the car to be included in the assessment, and the air quality inside the car needs type test and production consistency test.
Figure? |? From the network
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.