Discrimination of two-mixture fragrances odor using artificial odor recognition system with ensemble backpropagation neural networks

The human sensory test is often used to obtain the sensory quantities of odors, however, the fluctuation of results due to the experts condition can cause discrepancies among panelists. We have developed an artificial odor recognition system using a quartz resonator sensor and backpropagation neural networks as the pattern recognition system in order to eliminate the disadvantage of human panelist system. The backpropagation neural networks shows high recognition rate for single component odor, however, become very low when it is used to discriminate mixture fragrances odor. In this paper we have proposed an ensemble of backpropagation neural networks as the pattern recognition system, and by using the ensemble learning mechanisms, the recognition rate is significantly increased, especially when using ensemble neural networks with five components.