"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."