Smart Olfaction Sensor Innovator Aryballe Launches the Digital Olfaction Automotive Consortium

Aryballe Technologies launches consortium with leaders in the automotive industry to address emerging needs in mobility services and autonomous vehicles.

Grenoble, France – March 14, 2019 – Aryballe Technologies, the pioneer in digital olfaction, has launched the Digital Olfaction Automotive Consortium (DOAC) with key players across the automotive industry to address industry trends attributed to new mobility services and the evolution of self-driving cars. Together, Aryballe and the consortium’s founding members will establish the standards for odor measurement in the automotive industry and inform olfaction product development and services.

Humans can sense an average of 1 trillion odors, but can’t often distinguish between them. Unlike color and sound, smell does not fall along a clear spectrum, making it hard to compare various odors. But Aryballe is helping to change this by evaluating characteristics of individual scent molecules and testing them against a database of known smells using a combination of biochemistry, advance optics and machine learning.

Its first product, the NeOse Pro™, launched at CES 2018, delivers this unique olfaction technology in an easy-to-use, handheld unit. As the automotive industry adopts new models like shared economy and robo-taxis, olfaction measurement companies have the unique opportunity to improve the user experience in a way that can speed adoption. In this new scenario, digital olfaction is the key to quantify smells in the car—both nuisance, such as cigarette smell, and those indicating component malfunctions, such as a fuel leak—to ensure health and comfort of drivers.

In addition to setting standards, the DOAC will collaborate to create an accessible reference database for odors, evaluate prototype sensors and analytic software versions from Aryballe Technologies, and also receive substantial engineering support in their proof-of-concept innovation initiatives.

“We feel that creating alignment at this critical juncture in the automotive industry is key to developing standards for future digital olfaction products that fit the requirements of the market,” said Sam Guilaumé, Aryballe CEO. “We’re excited to build partnerships that will realize our vision of miniaturized, reliable, low-cost olfaction sensors that resonate across the automotive value chain.”

The founding members of the DOAC met at CES 2019 to set the group’s initiatives and priorities for the year. Aryballe expects to expand the group to include more OEMs, suppliers and fleet service providers with additional programs still to be announced.