Sensor Technologies - Artificial Human Sensors: Science and Applications - page 85

towardsthemainaspectsofsensorcategorisation. The sensor principles based
on the human ability to recognise structures and patterns, and even to be com-
patible with human perception are indeed important factors in sensing features in
complex environments. A sensor's abilities to be able to interface with the human
capability that can perceive or relate a measured parameter is of vital interest, and
are of the main aspects in the concept of this topic, namely the artificial human
sensor approach.
However, there are a number of sensing principles, where human performance
is not able to cope with artificial sensors. The human perception has obvious lim-
itations and may not sense specific parameters, or even not be able to perform a
real understanding about an ongoing measurement sequence. The word “super-
sensor” has been used for sensor types that have an unique potential of collecting
information that humans normally cannot explore. These super-sensors are cat-
egorized as devices, whose potential in cooperation with humans, are such that
their technology empower us with an extended reality, Siegel (2003).
Examples can be found in various sensing areas related to the basic human
sensing systems as listed below.
— auditory , ultrasound sensors that perceive frequencies outside the human
audible range.
— vision , thermal cameras that can measure invisible infrared radiation, which
humans cannot perceive.
— olfaction , electronic noses, can measure chemical compounds that are not
detectable by humans, e.g., the presence of carbon monoxide.
— gustatory , electronic tongues, that can taste chemical compounds in very small
ranges, e.g., the presence of chlorine in drinking water.
— kinetic , tactile robot hands, that provide more complex gripping modes than
humans.
These examples indicate that we are able to invent, design and make advanced
technology related systems that are extensively able to complement the human
perceptual performance. There is, however, a challenge in using these types of
“super-sensors” performance as an effective and attractive equipment, with usabil-
ity toward the existing human perception, in an active and interactive information
process. To get individuals to fully understand these sensing abilities, there will
most likely be a need for an adequate and human friendly solution. The solution
has to cope with an effective interaction and translate the measured parameters
into a communicative flow of redundant information to be presented to humans or
human related systems. This is not a trivial problem when the information often
has to correlate with basic parameter information. For example, when merging
quantitative data from a temperature sensor (e.g., 38.3 ◦ C) and human fuzzy de-
scriptions from an electronic nose device (e.g., smell of vanilla) into a reliable and
fused information, in order to get a human related qualitative value (e.g., warm
vanilla yogurt). Moreover, the measurement procedure has to depend on a re-
producible, significant and calibrated tradition. The established qualitative value