Self-Driving Cars May Be Smelling You

When it comes to developing self-driving cars, automated vehicles (AVs) or whatever you want to call them, the particular suite of sensors that a given company chooses to include or not has proven to be a very big deal. Tesla, for example, famously rejects the use of LiDAR, at the risk of falling prey to certain famous animated canids. Cameras are extremely common, of course, as they represent the technological analogue to human eyes, which are, generally, extensively used in driving. Auditory sensors – microphones – have also been used in cars for decades, and may have some applications for self-driving, but what about smell?

I ask this not because I have some amazing idea about how automated vehicles could be sniffing their way to success, but because there’s some strange evidence that at least some AV companies seem to be, well, smelling things.

I say this because yesterday my friend Rob was driving around the Bay Area, and found himself behind this:

So, that Mustang Mach-e is a self-driving test vehicle from a UK-based company called Wayve, and they seem to have deployed a number of these test vehicles around a number of places, which seem to include California and Oregon.

The vehicle has a helpful QR code and URL on the back that goes to this page, and from there one of the options is that you have seen one of their vehicles in public. These vehicles are, of course, using all kinds of sensors, so it’s good that they at least let you know a bit about how they’ve scanned you and what they may do with that data.

They didn’t ask if they could scan you or give you a way to opt out, but I guess this is better than nothing?

Anyway, my friend went to the URL and texted me this:

Wait, what? Olfactory? Is he having me on? I checked the URL for myself (emphasis mine):

“If you are a California or Oregon resident, we must also provide you with the following information:

• • Some of the data we collect and may have collected in the past 12 months) includes:

    • Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information.

So, yeah, it looks like they did fucking smell him! Or at least they reserve the right to?

Now, I’m familiar with Rob’s heady, redolent musk, and if this Mach-e did, in fact, get a good whiff of him, I’m impressed it managed to stay on the road as well as it did. But that doesn’t really explain why Wayve is employing stink-sensors on their AVs?

I did a bit of research and found that there actually has been some investigation into the use of electronic olfactory sensors in the automated driving world, but so far most of that research seems to be focused internally, making the passenger experience in an AV more pleasant.

One article focused on evaluating the emotional state of passengers via smell-sensing, and then using various generated scents to alter the mood, alertness, comfort, and other factors. Here’s a video of a guy who has a startup called Moodify focused on using smell in the context of car interior experiences:

Huh. I wonder how quickly they can annihilate a really rank fart in a closed car? That’s the only test that actually matters here, I’d think.

The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) also reported on research into AI smell detection and its use in the context of automated vehicles, but, again, just in an interior context.

This still doesn’t explain the context of what Wayve is doing here, smell-wise. Their test vehicles are not currently being used to transport passengers, and while they seem to have “safety operators” inside (at least in the UK and Germany, where I’ve seen job listings for this role, so I’m not entirely sure about the US) I don’t think the smell-systems are being used for them? Maybe they are?

Whatever, the point is the URL on the back of the car is directed at people outside the car, and that’s where the warning about the potential for being sniffed by a car was found. So, I still want to know if Wayve vehicles are smelling us, the people that may be around them, and, if so, what are they doing with the knowledge of how we stink?

Is there some way this could be used for automated driving? Another way of avoiding obstacles, perhaps? Or maybe this allows for route planning that is designed to take you by bakeries or BBQ joints or donut shops, or perhaps avoid paper mills and sewage treatment plants?

I reached out to Wayve to see if they could explain to me just how they’re using olfactory sensors on their cars, and what they plan to do with all our stinktistics once they get them.

I hope they respond; if they do, I’ll update this so we can all better understand how the tech industry is smelling its way to self-driving.

(top image: screenshot from Wayve.com)

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