Android and PSoC Technology Applied to Electronic Tongue Development

Abstract

Nowadays, in the food industry, analyzing the quality of alimentary products has become a necessity. As a result, producers have been searching for new accurate methods to analyze food quality. The development of bio-inspired devices (electronic nose and electronic tongue) is a potential alternative to supply this need. The current project shows the development of a prototype circuit based on PSoC technology, which is used as a signal processing stage in an electronic tongue device with the ability to discriminate and classify samples of raw milk. In general, electronic tongues consist of electrochemical sensors array, a signals processing stage and a data processing stage. PSoC is an integrated circuit composed of analog and digital blocks into a configurable core. With the use of PSoC microchip, it is possible to develop a portable and small electrochemical device. This prototype takes measures from electrochemical sensors exposed to samples of drinks using the cyclic voltammetry technique; these signals are processed and transmitted to the next stage, which shows the response from the electrochemical sensors through an I-V curve, called voltammogram. With the development of this device, it was found that the application of PSoC technology on electrochemical measurement devices is important, due to its ability to develop cheaper, smaller, faster and sturdier devices.