Addressing Sensing Statistics through Oscillator-Based Sensing Arrays

This work highlights the development of an array of oscillator-based sensors suitable for the detection of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) was leveraged to monitor the oscillation frequency of 16 sensing elements in parallel. It was shown that three functional chemistries can be deposited via inkjet printing and subsequently used to identify various analytes of interest. This response is valuable for identifying sample air makeup using techniques such as principle component analysis. Additionally, this system utilized an array of sufficient scale to incorporate several functional chemistries with intentional redundancies. Ultimately, this work demonstrates a low-cost oscillator-based sensing array capable of simultaneously monitoring chemical processes with single second resolution using 16 independent channels.