The Hilbert-Huang Transform and Its Application in Processing Dynamic Signals of Gas Sensors

By retrieving information from dynamic signals of temperature modulated gas sensors, new response features can be obtained that confer more selectivity to metal oxide sensors. Time-frequency and transient analysis have been widely used in this kind of dynamic signal processing. These methods represent important characteristics of a signal in both time and frequency domain. In this way, essential features of the signal can be viewed and analyzed in order to identify or quantify the detected gases. Very often the fast Fourier transform and the discrete wavelet transform have been used as the dynamic signal processing tools. This work presents the application of a new signal processing technique, empirical mode decomposition and the Hilbert spectrum, in analysis of dynamic response signals of gas sensors. Using EMD method, the dynamic signals were decomposed into the intrinsic modes that coexist in the sensor system, and to have a better understanding of the nature of the gas sensing response information contained in the sensor response signals. The experimental results show that marginal spectrum can be used as useful feature for identification. By this method, the intrinsic response components to the detected gas may be provided and the extracted features are simple and having intrinsic physical meaning.