A two-dimensional Fourier compression method has been developed as a t
ool for portable sensors. Ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) yields an ad
vanced chemical sensor for monitoring trace quantities of compounds in
air. Two-dimensional Fourier compression can increase the compression
efficiency without compromising the quality of compressed data. A cri
terion for the automatic determination of the compression efficiency o
r cutoff frequency has been developed and evaluated with IMS data. IMS
data were compressed by 97% without significant loss of information.