The 19th and 20th of March, the Working Group (WG) 41 of the European Standard Organization met in Milan to discuss several issues related to Instrumental Odour Monitoring Systems (IOMS) or so called e-noses. This new standard was on the brisk of being downgraded to a technical specification, because the text developed by the experts was lacking a development on the first stage of Quality Assurance Level (QAL1), among other things.
The European regulation allowed in the mandatory area only EN 15267 certified automated measuring systems (AMS) for the continuous measurements of air pollution. However, the QAL1-certification for AMS instruments cannot be applied, as is, for IOMS. The QAL1 certification clearly needs an adaptation to the complexities of measuring odours according to the 2 reference methods considered in this standard, the EN 13725 and the EN 16841.
The 11th of April there will be a free workshop dealing with standardization on low-cost sensors in Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) in Berlin. Within this Workshop, there will be a presentationd dedicated to standards on Instrumental Odour Monitoring Systems. This part will be headed by Mr. Thorsten Conrad who is a member of the Working Group 41 of the European Standardization Committee (CEN).
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has launched an open call for experts to participate in a new standard for e-noses. The organization is asking for volunteers to contribute to this new standard that will have a strong focus on specific applications of these devices. The IEEE Sensors Council and the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society will sponsor the initial phases of this expanded standardization effort.