Ultra-low-power is a key performance indicator in 6G-IoT ecosystems. Sensor nodes in this eco-system are also capable of running light-weight artificial intelligence (AI) models. In this work, we have achieved high performance in a gas sensor system using Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) with a smaller number of gas sensor elements. We have identified redundant gas sensor elements in a gas sensor array and removed them to reduce the power consumption without significant deviation in the node’s performance. The inevitable variation in the performance due to removing redundant sensor elements has been compensated using specialized data pre-processing (zero-padded virtual sensors and spatial augmentation) and CNN. The experiment is demonstrated to classify and quantify the four hazardous gases, viz., acetone, carbon tetrachloride, ethyl methyl ketone, and xylene. The performance of the unoptimized gas sensor array has been taken as a “baseline” to compare the performance of the optimized gas sensor array. Our proposed approach reduces the power consumption from 10 Watts to 5 Watts; classification performance sustained to 100 percent while quantification performance compensated up to a mean squared error (MSE) of 1.12 × 10−2. Thus, our power-efficient optimization paves the way to “computation on edge”, even in the resource-constrained 6G-IoT paradigm.

High-performance detection and estimation of gases/odors are challenging, especially in real-time gas sensing applications. Recently, efficient electronic noses (e-noses) are being developed using convolutional neural networks (CNNs). Further, CNNs perform better when they operate on a minimal size of vector response. In this paper, dimensions of the operational vectors have been augmented by using virtual sensor responses. These virtual responses are obtained from the principal components of the physical sensor responses. Accordingly, two sets of data are upscaled as a one-dimensional one. Another level of upscaling is further obtained by using the mirror mosaicking technique. Hence, with our proposed novel approach, the final vector size for CNN operations achieves a new dimension. With this upscaled hybrid dataset, consisting of physical and virtual sensor responses, a simpler CNN has achieved 100 percent correct classification in two different experimental settings. To the best of authors information, it is for the first time that an e-nose has been designed using a principal component-based hybrid, upscaled dataset and achieves 100 percent correct classification of the considered gases/odors.

Detection and monitoring of airborne hazards using e-noses has been lifesaving and prevented accidents in real-world scenarios. E-noses generate unique signature patterns for various volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and, by leveraging artificial intelligence, detect the presence of various VOCs, gases, and smokes onsite. Widespread monitoring of airborne hazards across many remote locations is possible by creating a network of gas sensors using Internet connectivity, which consumes significant power. Long-range (LoRa)-based wireless networks do not require Internet connectivity while operating independently. Therefore, we propose a networked intelligent gas sensor system (N-IGSS) which uses a LoRa low-power wide-area networking protocol for real-time airborne pollution hazard detection and monitoring. We developed a gas sensor node by using an array of seven cross-selective tin-oxide-based metal-oxide semiconductor (MOX) gas sensor elements interfaced with a low-power microcontroller and a LoRa module. Experimentally, we exposed the sensor node to six classes i.e., five VOCs plus ambient air and as released by burning samples of tobacco, paints, carpets, alcohol, and incense sticks. Using the proposed two-stage analysis space transformation approach, the captured dataset was first preprocessed using the standardized linear discriminant analysis (SLDA) method. Four different classifiers, namely AdaBoost, XGBoost, Random Forest (RF), and Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), were then trained and tested in the SLDA transformation space. The proposed N-IGSS achieved “all correct” identification of 30 unknown test samples with a low mean squared error (MSE) of 1.42 × 10−4 over a distance of 590 m.

Recently, society/industry is getting smarter and sustainable through artificial intelligencebased solutions. However, this rapid advancement is also polluting our air ambience. Hence real-time detection and estimation of hazardous gases/odors in the air ambiance has become a critical need. In this paper, a convolutional neural network (CNN) based multi-element gas sensor arrays signature response analysis approach has been presented to achieve higher accuracy in detection and estimation of hazardous gases. Accordingly, the real-time gas sensor array responses are spatially upscaled and processed on the edge, using lightweight CNNs. For the verification of our hypothesis, we have used a four-element metaloxide semi-conductor (MOS)-based thick-film gas sensor array, fabricated by our group, by using SnO2, ZnO, MoO, CdS materials for detection and estimation of four target hazardous gases, viz., acetone, carbon-tetrachloride, ethyl-methyl-ketone, and xylene. The four-element (2×2) raw sensor responses are first upscaled to 6×6 responses and a lightweight CNN is trained on 42 samples of 6×6 input vectors. The trained system is then tested using 16 unknown (not used during training) test samples of the considered gases/odors. All the 16 test samples are detected correctly. The Mean Squared Error (MSEs) of detection has been 1.42×10 -14 while the estimation accuracy of 2.43×10 -3 were achieved for the considered gases. Our designed system is generic in design and can be extended to other gases/odors of interest.

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