Airbus will soon sniff passengers on planes for coronavirus, bombs

Can you imagine a future where a plane sniffs and smells you to make sure you're not sick, or carrying some kind of biological hazard or a bomb? Well, get ready -- because the future is about to smack you in the face, and then probably give you a sniff down.

Airbus has teamed with Koniku on developing a new air-scanning system that will -- in laymen's terms -- sniff out for viruses, bombs, and other threats. The partnership between the two companies "was originally focused on contactless and automated detection, tracking, and location of chemicals and explosives on-board aircraft and in airports".

But now with coronavirus floating around the world like a wrecking ball, the companies changed things up in order to "include the identification of biological hazards".

Airbus is using "genetically engineered odorant receptors", which translates into a system that uses living cells to do the actual detecting. If the sniffers "smell" something that needs to be warned about, an alarm goes off and authorities know what to do. The system will be able to sniff out anything that goes into making an explosive, through to chemicals used in terrorist attacks -- and even traces of viruses such as the novel coronavirus.

Airbus is hoping to start real-world testing by the end of 2020.