Putting olfaction into action: using an electronic nose on a multi-sensing mobile robot

Olfaction is a challenging new sensing modality for intelligent systems. With the emergence of electronic noses it is now possible to detect and recognise a range of different odours for a variety of applications. An existing application is to use electronic olfaction on mobile robots for the purpose of odour based navigation. In this work, we introduce a new application where electronic olfaction is used in cooperation with other types of sensors on a mobile robot in order to acquire the odour property of objects. The mobility of the robot facilitates the execution of specific perceptual actions, such as moving closer to objects to acquire odour properties. Additional sensing modalities provides the spatial detection of objects and electronic olfaction then acquires the odour property which can be used for discrimination and recognition of the object being considered. We examine the problem of deciding when, how and where the e-nose should be activated by planning for active perception. We investigate the use of symbolic reasoning techniques in this context and consider the problem of integrating the information provided by the e-nose with both prior information and information from other sensors (e.g., vision). Finally, experiments are performed on a mobile robot equipped with an e-nose together with a variety of sensors that can perform decision making tasks in realistic environments.