The acronym Omniscientis stands for Odour MoNitoring and Information System based on CItizEn and Technology Innovative Sensors. Appart from being a rather complicated way of naming a project, what is there behind this EU funded project?

   This project is coordinated by the Belgian company Spacebel S.A and counts on partners from Belgium, Austria, Luxembourg and France. The idea behind this project is to improve the performance of an Environmental Information Management System, using direct observations from citizens, real time measurement of odours near the sources with sensors, process parameters and modelling odour dispersion.

   Scentroid, a very active Canadian manufacturer has presented in the recent NOSE 2014 in Venice their new wind tunnel, the SW60. This very light weight wind tunnel for sampling odours is made of aluminium/composite panels and it has a coating inside of PTFE. In addition, the wind tunnel comes with an internal air supply and tubing with an internal rechargeable battery to do the surface sampling in passive sources easier.

   The wind tunnel is based on the lindvall design with a few new features to make it easier to use. The package includes the hood, pump, tubing and a battery integrated in a very small case. The hood is made with two walls, so that it prevents the inside part of the wind tunnel to be damaged by a bang against a wall for example.