09 Implementation of Complex Gas Sensor Systems: Ideas for a Structural Model
Assessing gas mixtures is a task of tremendous complexity, especially when using cost efficient chemical sensors. Current research topics tend to concentrate on materials, processing, data analysis and simulations of promising target applications. However, successful commercialization of gas sensing solutions needs to cover the complete scope of the corresponding problem. Blind spots will cause false interpretation of results, overestimation of performance and inevitably result in overall failure. As a step towards a universal scheme for gas sensing devices and systems, a structural model for these is proposed inspired by the ISO OSI model for communication networks. It is intended to support development for a specific task as well as laying out the general idea of complex commercial or research projects. Main benefits are instant overview over the technology, indication of completeness and interface definition between sub systems and project groups. In order to cover general considerations on the meaningfulness of the target application, additional logical layers that go beyond the technological scope are included organically. Examples are given to demonstrate applicability to current implementations of devices and systems. Further work will include refining layer and interface definitions as well as evaluating quantification methods for system performance; application notes shall be developed in collaboration with the sensor community.