Abstract: The gas sensor arrays were composed of different separate sensors. The separate sensors composing the sensor array were tested in order to form an optimal sensor array. The distilled spirit(Erguoton brand) produced by Beijing Jinggong Wine Insdustry Technology Development Corporation was used as experimental reference specimen. The distillated water was blended into the spirits in the ratios of 1∶3, 1∶2 and 1∶1 respectively to prepare the working specimens. The working specimens were used to test the performance of the sensor array and the results were compared with that of the reference specimen. An artificial neural network was utilizid to analyze the collected data and estimate the performance of the sensor arrays. It was proved that the array performance can be considerably by changing the sensor.

Key words: food engineering, food quality detection, gas sensor array, electronic nose