Abstract
A new method to find a gas/odor source is proposed. A portable gas sensor array was fabricated by arranging 5×5 pulse drive semiconductor gas sensors, and was used to visualize the flow of a target gas. The direction of the flow is estimated by an image processing algorithm, and the gas source can be located by tracking the obtained direction. The redundant information from the sensor array is expected to enhance the reliability of the obtained direction compared with the case of a few sensors, especially under the environment with large wind turbulence and/or a quite slow wind field. The experiment in a wind tunnel revealed the soundness of the basic idea. The direction of the gas flow of 1_??_2cm/s, lower than the limit of our previous system, has successfully been estimated by the fabricated system.
