Feature extraction methods for the analysis of an electronic nose response

this work deals with different methods for the analysis of the response of an electronic nose. for this purpose we employed data obtained with a prototype of electronic nose, developed in our laboratories, applied to the analysis of a basic ingredient of beer, hop. we aimed to fulfill the two main requirements of the local brewing industry, namely, deterioration of hop's quality, due to aging or poor storage and quick discrimination of the various similar types of pellets usually employed. different methods for the analysis of the response of each sensor have been studied. a comparison between discrimination obtained with a linear dimensional reduction via principal component analysis and a non linear reduction obtained with self organized maps has also been made.