Market Overview

Today, majority of the odor-related issues are addressed by measuring odor intensity and improving workflows utilizing the measured data manually. Although automating this process is much more efficient, the cost of introducing odor sensors is often not feasible from a return on investment perspective. Only a fraction of companies provides odor sensing business on commercial basis.Expansion of the olfactory sensor market is hindered by multiple reasons, typically:1. Lack of standardized odor data sets2. Complexity of identifying intricate chemical mixtures3. Difficulty competing with the superiority of the human olfactory systemThe absence of a universal sensing standard persists. While various methodologies have emerged, each presents specific trade-offs depending on the application. Many potential adopters doubt the economic justification for these systems, believing manual sensory evaluation to be more cost-effective.​Furthermore, deployment of an olfactory sensor system typically requires extensive calibration and specialized training, often necessitating direct and ongoing intervention from developers to ensure accuracy.Given the circumstances, the global olfactory sensor market is projected to attain 2,435.92 million yen in 2026.

Noteworthy Topics

Olfactory Sensors for Agriculture and Healthcare

[Agriculture]

Crop growth is heavily affected by climate and weather conditions, making harvesting decisions highly dependent on farmers’ experience and intuition. The proliferation of AI has been enabling the development of visual, tactile, auditory, and olfactory sensing based on these human expertise as data.

​Due to extremely low intensity of odor-producing compounds (often less than 0.01%), high-performance gas sensors featuring advanced chips are frequently used in agricultural odor evaluations. Nonetheless, identifying gases in farm produce that emits highly complex aroma compound, such as fruit, is too complicated without gas chromatography. For this reason, fruit odor evaluation is often conducted on overall odor concentration.

Additionally, there are cases where fruit odor evaluation is conducted by focusing on specific gas, such as ethylene to assess fruit ripening and volatile compounds like organic acids, alcohols, and ethyl acetate for evaluating postharvest decay. Application of this method is expected to expand to livestock farming, such as for the detection of malodors like ammonia.

[Healthcare]

Certain diseases are known to emit specific odors through breath, sweat, urine, or skin. Studies are underway to detect these odors with olfactory sensors for early diagnosis of medical conditions.

One example is the development of AI-supported breath tests for early detection of lung cancer. A Japanese research team has pioneered a method of using an olfactory sensor known as the Membrane-type Surface Stress Sensor (MSS). Pre- and post-surgery exhalations of cancer patients are used as training data for machine learning to construct a discriminative model. With additional experiments on various types of gas analyzers, the team expects to extend the application of the system for screening cancers of all kind, not just identifying molecules particular to lung cancer.

Another example is the development of highly sensitive gas sensors by the Japanese research institution. In addition to the development of gas sensor elements, researchers succeeded in the development of sensor allay with multiple sensors and data analytics technology, which combinedly enable tracing of acetone at very low concentrations. This allows for the early detection of diabetes, as diabetic patients emit elevated levels of acetone through their skin and breath. Once this sensor becomes widely obtainable, treatment of diabetes at early stage becomes feasible. 

Future Outlook

Olfactory sensors are expected to see growing adoption in specialized applications, but their commercial viability remains a key challenge for developers. To expand the olfactory sensor market, developers must create a new uncontested market, while establishing robust organizational structures in both R&D and sales to respond to increasingly diverse market needs.

In addition, development of olfactory sensors incorporating multiple sensor elements that complement one another is gaining momentum. By accommodating a broader range of customer requirements, these next-generation sensors are expected to improve commercial viability.

Moreover, signs are emerging of businesses focused not only on odor identification (input) but also on aroma reproduction (output). Growing demand for scent reproduction technologies may, in turn, accelerate the social implementation of olfactory sensors as input devices.

Based on these outlook, the global olfactory sensor market* is forecasted to reach 19683.4 million yen by 2035.

*The global olfactory sensor market encompasses olfactory sensors, sensor elements (built-in devices), software (for dashboard and analytics), and consulting services (utilizing all or some of these components combined with expertise, advisory services, and implementation support).

Research Outline