2016 journal article
Odor Assessment of Automobile Cabin Air With Field Asymmetric Ion Mobility Spectrometry and Photoionization Detection
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, 16(2), 409–417.
Odor quality in the cabin air of automobiles can be a significant factor in the decision to purchase a vehicle and the overall customer satisfaction with the vehicle over time. A current standard practice uses a human panel to rate the vehicle cabin odors on intensity, irritation, and pleasantness. However, human panels are expensive, time-consuming, and complicated to administer. To address this issue, we present a machine olfaction approach to assess odors inside automobiles. The approach uses a field asymmetric ion mobility spectrometer and a photoionization detector to measure volatile organic compounds, and a multivariate technique to map sensor data into human ratings. Validation on an experimental dataset of odors from ten different vehicles shows a correlation (0.67-0.84) between model predictions and ground truth from a trained human panel. These results support the feasibility of replacing human panel assessments by objective instrumental means for quality control tasks in the production process.