Chemometric brains for artificial tongues.

The last years showed a significant trend toward the exploitation of rapid and economic analytical devices able to provide multiple information about samples. Among these, the so-called artificial tongues represent effective tools which allow a global sample characterization comparable to a fingerprint. Born as taste sensors for food evaluation, such devices proved to be useful for a wider number of purposes. In this review, a critical overview of artificial tongue applications over the last decade is outlined. In particular, the focus is centered on the chemometric techniques, which allow the extraction of valuable information from nonspecific data. The basic steps of signal processing and pattern recognition are discussed and the principal chemometric techniques are described in detail, highlighting benefits and drawbacks of each one. Furthermore, some novel methods recently introduced and particularly suitable for artificial tongue data are presented.