Clustering of Alpha Curves in Differential Mobility Spectrometry Data

Abstract

Volatile organic compounds (VOC) can be analyzed and classified based on dispersion plots yielded by Differential Mobility Spectrometry (DMS). These dispersion plots contain traces, also known as alpha curves that indicate the presence of VOCs with specific charge and cross-sectional area. However, often the dispersion plots are analyzed without utilizing this information but rather using the pixel values independently or analyzing values at a specific high electric field level. This paper proposes a technique for extracting and clustering alpha curves from dispersion plots. The cluster information could then be used inside existing detection and classification algorithms to potentially improve their accuracy.