Clustering of Alpha Curves in Differential Mobility Spectrometry Data

Abstract

Volatile organic compounds (VOC) can be analyzedand classified based on dispersion plots yielded by DifferentialMobility Spectrometry (DMS). These dispersion plots containtraces, also known as alpha curves that indicate the presence ofVOCs with specific charge and cross-sectional area. However,often the dispersion plots are analyzed without utilizing thisinformation but rather using the pixel values independently oranalyzing values at a specific high electric field level. This paperproposes a technique for extracting and clustering alpha curvesfrom dispersion plots. The cluster information could then beused inside existing detection and classification algorithms topotentially improve their accuracy