Olfactory Signal Processing

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new signal processing framework for olfactory signals, leveraging recent scientific insights like olfactory white, and demonstrates applications such as odor cancellation and food steganography.

Contribution

It develops a novel paradigm for olfactory signal processing based on physicochemical features and psychophysical concepts, filling a gap in sensory signal processing research.

Findings

Framework predicts odor perception from chemical features

Demonstrates odor cancellation and food steganography applications

Provides empirical examples for olfactory signal tasks

Abstract

Olfaction, the sense of smell, has received scant attention from a signal processing perspective in comparison to audition and vision. In this paper, we develop a signal processing paradigm for olfactory signals based on new scientific discoveries including the psychophysics concept of olfactory white. We describe a framework for predicting the perception of odorant compounds from their physicochemical features and use the prediction as a foundation for several downstream processing tasks. We detail formulations for odor cancellation and food steganography, and provide real-world empirical examples for the two tasks. We also discuss adaptive filtering and other olfactory signal processing tasks at a high level.