Objective
"The capture and analysis of odours offers significant potential for border security applications related to the detection and analysis of persons, illegal substances and in particular explosives. Dogs - the most effective ""tool"" for detecting and analysing odours - can only be trained for a small sample of odours, get easily tired and are often perceived as intrusive by the public.
The SNIFFER project proposes a highly innovative one-stop shop approach to complement dogs and leverage their capabilities. This approach is based on state-of-the-art technologies centred on a new generation of olfactory biosensors. The SNIFFER devices to be developed combine in a one-stop shop sampling, pre-concentration and pre-treatment with bio-mimicry, synthetic diamond sensor technology and multi-parametric training software. This will enable the detection of odours arising out of security threats which may occur in a panel of border security applications. This flexible technology allows users to continuously keep improving the ""olfactory scope"" of their ""artificial sniffers"" quickly and at low additional cost, even once they have been deployed.
This concept results from a multidisciplinary collaboration of several years between research teams from Italy, the UK, France and Switzerland. Users involved in the SNIFFER project will provide a representative set of usage cases, all related to border control security in the large sense - such as the detection of illegal substances carried by people and in suitcases (open or on a luggage belt) and cars or the detection of hidden people in containers. EADS, the integrator partner will build dedicated systems for these usage cases to allow for a comprehensive assessment in view of progressively improving the technology. The project will hence open the road towards a promising market place for ""artificial sniffing"" centred border security solutions and for olfactory applications in general."
Fields of science
Call for proposal
FP7-SEC-2011-1
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
CP-FP - Small or medium-scale focused research projectCoordinator
75015 Paris 15
France
Participants (14)
Participation ended
75382 Paris Cedex 08
M13 9PL Manchester
75800 Paris
75272 Paris
82024 Taufkirchen
1015 Lausanne
Participation ended
00195 Roma
35122 Padova
75382 Paris
31681 Labege
67443 Tel Aviv Jaffo
546 46 Thessaloniki
72558 Ramle
75013 Paris