| abstract |
The bitterness of an active drug can be quantified in an objective manner using an electronic tongue device comprising an array of liquid sensors. During a training phase, the electronic tongue device is presented with samples of known bitterness and a relationship is determined between sample bitterness and the set of outputs of the liquid sensors. This relationship is then used, in a subsequent analysis phase, to produce bitterness values for samples whose bitterness is not known a priori. The electronic tongue device advantageously applies a partial least squares calculation to the sensor outputs when relating sample bitterness to sensor outputs. During the training phase, the samples of known bitterness which are presented to the electronic tongue device can comprise samples containing the same active ingredient at different concentrations. |