"Sniffing" Robots

"Sniffing" Robots

Top of Mind with Julie Rose

Grad Jobs Outlook, Sniffing Robots, Chocolate and Depression

Episode: Grad Jobs Outlook, Sniffing Robots, Chocolate and Depression

  • May 27, 2015 9:00 pm
  • 18:38 mins

Guest:  Brian Smith, Ph. D., Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience at Arizona State University  Robots are becoming more human every day. We’ve programed them to clean our houses, manufacture goods, and even fight our wars. They can move, speak, see, and interact with their environment – often better than humans. But here’s one thing robots can’t do even remotely as well as we can – sniff an odor on the air and figure out what it is.    Robots that could smell could detect threats without endangering lives—like gas or bomb threats, for example. Brian Smith, behavioral neuroscientist at Arizona State University, looks at other animals for inspiration on how to create robots that could smell.