A Phone-Sensor for Trace Chemical Detection

The work presented here is a nanosensor array based detector system for real time, in-situ sensing of trace chemicals in the environment. The nanosensor array is integrated with a cellphone to utilize the cell phone communication system for wireless and network sensing via 3G and/or Wi-Fi. This sensing system is compact, low cost, low power, and high-speed. This system is also called a tetracorder that can detect chemicals, humidity, temperature, and pressure at the same time. The advantages of using this tetracorder (a phone-sensor) are: 1) it can give an early warning when a chemical event occurred, 2) they are small, self contain, and portable for easy carry-on, 3) the measurement result can be sent to the control center right away, 4) it can provide the location information for tracking the source of an event, 5) it can provide the environmental information with the chemical detection for helping the judgment of the real situation.