Patent ID: 7980121

Claim:
A degradation simulator for a gas sensor including a sensor element having a solid electrolyte layer and a pair of electrodes located opposite to each other across from said solid electrolyte layer, and an element cover surrounding said sensor element and formed with a vent hole to introduce an ambient gas into said sensor element, said sensor element outputting a sensor output signal having a value depending on concentration of a specific gas in said ambient gas, said degradation simulator comprising: a first setting function of enabling variably setting a time constant delay which appears on said sensor output signal when concentration of said specific gas changes; a second setting function of enabling variably setting a dead time delay which appears on said sensor output signal when concentration of said specific gas changes; and an adding function of adding at least one of said time constant delay set by said first function and said dead time delay set by said second function to said sensor output signal in order to generate a pseudo-degraded sensor output signal in accordance with an external instruction.