​"Mimicry has enabled us to design our NeOse Advance electronic nose", explains Tristan Rousselle, co-founder of start-up Aryballe with two CEA researchers. "It combines biochemical sensors mimicking the nose's natural sensors and a data analysis module mimicking the olfactory bulb". 

This digital sniffer can recognize thousands of smells from the most delicate (flowers, perfumes, fruits and monitoring their ripening) to the less pleasant (putrefaction, ammonia, etc.). 

The idea was born in 2014, when the entrepreneur, wishing to "launch a breakthrough project at the interface of several technologies", turned to CEA-Grenoble with which he was familiar, having previously founded a start-up with one of the latter's laboratories. The digital olfaction theme then emerged very quickly: Inac  proposed the sensor and CEA-Leti its photonics know-how.

"There was a pressing need, especially on the part of the aroma and fragrance industry, which was seeking odor recognition tools that delivered objective information and are lighter, faster and cheaper than gas chromatography coupled with mass spectroscopy". Other markets have expressed their interest including that of household appliances. "For example, manufacturers are imagining ovens that switch off automatically when the fodd is cooked", says Tristan Rousselle.

Great promises are also expected in the health sector in relation to detecting illnesses, just like the dogs trained in olfactive recognition of breast or prostate cancer.