No abstract

No abstract

Many animals have the ability to search for odor sources by tracking their plumes. Some of the key features of this search behavior have been successfully transferred to robot platforms, although the capabilities of animals are still beyond the current level of sensor technologies. The examples described in this paper are (1) incorporating into a wheeled robot the upwind surges and casting used by moths in tracking pheromone plumes, (2) extracting useful information from the response patterns of a chemical sensor array patterned after the spatially distributed chemoreceptors of some animals, and (3) mimicking the fanning behavior of silkworm moths to enhance the reception of chemical signals by drawing molecules from one direction. The achievements so far and current efforts are reviewed to illustrate the steps to be taken toward future development of this technology.

There has been significant recent interest in the development of low-temperature fuel cells for portable power generation because of their potentially very high efficiency and ultrahigh density of power generation. In many cases, hydrogen is a preferred fuel for use in fuel cells because of its very high energy density. In this paper, we report the first experimental evidence that autothermal reverse-flow operation of a microreactor results in up to a 5% increase in reaction selectivity toward hydrogen, a 200 °C decrease in the oxidation ignition temperature, and a reactor "skin" temperature below 60 °C for many hours of stable autothermal operation. Finally, the critical issues in the design of portable catalytic microreactors for small-scale power generation are discussed, leading to the proposed novel, highly integrated planar reactor design aimed at optimal functionality, manufacturability, and low cost.