Special Issue "Bioinspired Sensor Systems"

Guest Editor
Dr. Manel Del Valle
Sensors & Biosensors Group, Department of Chemistry, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Edifici Cn, Campus de Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Vallés), 08193 Barcelona, Spain
Website: http://einstein.uab.es/mdelvalle
E-Mail:
Interests: automation in analytical chemistry; FIA systems; SIA systems; chemical sensors; biosensors; instrumentation; genosensors; Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy; sensor arrays; electronic tongues

Dear Colleagues,

Nature has developed, by many years’ evolution processes, sensing organs and strategies that are being really difficult to equal by sensor technologists in versatility, performance, tolerance to saturation or sensitivity. Curiously, the strategies followed by nature are quite different from those used by researchers in the last decades – in the past, the main goals of researchers was to look for high sensitivity and selectivity devices, features not always possible to obtain. A second consideration is related to the number of analytes that might be of interest, or the number of spots needed to scrutinize. For these needs, common principles shared by the different animal senses, are showing to be of exceptional effectiveness. First, receptors in sensor buds are not of high specificity, but of broad response – and second, animal senses use bunches of slightly different receptors to allow by combinatorial principles to discriminate between thousands of objectives. With these concepts, in any detection event a large number of individual, imperfect responses are generated that next are processed by nervous system, in the simple insect, the hound dog or the human being; and it is the processing of the multivariate information that will deduct the direction to follow in order to mate, the trail of a prey or the presence of a scent. From these principles, it stands out the electronic noses, formed by slightly different sensor arrays to perform analysis in the gas phase, or electronic tongues, using arrays of sensors, that can be of different nature and will be applied with liquid samples. The sensor array principle may be extended to the use of biosensors, in search of improving their intrinsically superior selectivity, where they can offer interesting options for medical diagnostic or security threats. Similarly, the objectives of the system may be to mimic animal senses, to perform olfaction or tasting in hazard conditions, or in non-stop manner: this objective is followed by artificial olfaction or artificial taste researchers. But the same principle of using sets of sensors is being adapted to many other objectives: per example a skin of pressure sensors to detect structural stress in vehicles or buildings. In connection to this, biology offers very interesting operating principles to locate a source from an odor plume, or to track a fish prey from some residues, of uppermost interest in the case of locating victims of catastrophes or explosives. Also related is the sensor networking principles, aimed to detect entrance of a chemical (or an intruder), that can be devised from common principles used by ants or bees: to operate a number of sensing devices deployed along a region, and establish simple communication between them to locate the spot. The special issue of the journal Sensors will cover these different aspects of biologically inspired sensing, which surely will be of interest to grasp these last trends in the field.

Dr. Manel del Valle
Guest Editor

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• electronic nose
• electronic tongue
• electronic eye
• sensor skin
• artificial location
• artificial olfaction
• artificial taste
• artificial sensory panel
• multiplex biosensing
• object tracking
• odor tracking
• swarm sensor networks