The microchip that can smell!

"Necessity is the mother of invention".All the inventions and discoveries are the result of human needs. In this series of inventions here we are discussing a chip that can smell! Wait for a minute and think, what if your PC smells the odour and also gives you an idea about the source of odour! A PC with a nose.

A chip can do lots of things but still, the "brain" of computing systems falls short when it is compared to the human brain. But now, through the science of neuromorphic computing, researchers from Intel and Carnell University have developed a chip which can smell! It's more of a digital recreation of the nose.

The algorithm helps the chip work the same way as the human brain. The chip is able to identify and learn the smell. It is not like a typical silicon chip, It is neuromorphic, describing the use of large-very-scale-integration (VLSI) systems containing electronic analog circuit to mimic neuro-biological architecture present in the nervous system. It is like a  human brain with digital circuits that communicate like neurons.

The chip is powered by a neural algorithm. It is able to identify and even learn the neural pattern of odours based on input from an array of sensors. The chip was able to learn a neural pattern of odours that is 80% different from the one it had learned originally.

This chip will prove to be a milestone in the field of robotics. In future, it will maybe give the new heights to the field of chemistry also. Today, most of the compounds are identified on the basis of their specific odour. This may be very helpful for the peoples who work in chemistry labs, chemical industry.