Bionic Electronic Nose Technology: Bridging Bioinspiration, Nanomaterials, and AI for Next‐Generation Odor Sensing

ABSTRACT Bionic electronic nose integrates bio‐inspiration, nanomaterials, and artificial intelligence for advanced odor sensing. It mimics the mammalian olfactory pathway, from the olfactory receptor to the olfactory bulb and cortex, transforming the biological capabilities such as hierarchical processing, dynamic learning, and anti‐interference into a synergistic hardware‐algorithm architecture. This represents a fundamental departure from conventional approaches, where traditional gas sensors struggle with gas mixtures, interference, and short lifespans in complex environments. In contrast, bionic electronic noses leverage bio‐inspired pre‐treatment methods, multi‐sensor integrated core perception units, and neuromorphic processing such as spiking neural networks to simulate biological neural dynamics. These features grant significant advantages in complex odor recognition, including high robustness, adaptability, and low power consumption. Consequently, they enable critical applications in real‐time environmental pollutant tracking, precise food freshness and spoilage detection, industrial leak identification for safety, and non‐invasive medical diagnostics. This review first details the fundamental system architecture of the bionic electronic nose, introducing the gas sampling module, the nanomaterials sensing module, and the neuromorphic data processing module. We then discuss the promising application fields enabled by this technology. Finally, the key technical challenges and future development trends of bionic electronic noses are explored.