Humankind mimics the processes and strategies that nature has perfected and
uses them as a model to address its problems. That has recently found a new
direction, i.e., a novel communication technology called molecular
communication (MC), using molecules to encode, transmit, and receive
information. Despite extensive research, an innate MC method with plenty of
natural instances, i.e., olfactory or odor communication, has not yet been
studied with the tools of information and communication technologies (ICT).
Existing studies focus on digitizing this sense and developing actuators
without inspecting the principles of odor-based information coding and MC,
which significantly limits its application potential. Hence, there is a need to
focus cross-disciplinary research efforts to reveal the fundamentals of this
unconventional communication modality from an ICT perspective. The ways of
natural odor MC in nature need to be anatomized and engineered for end-to-end
communication among humans and human-made things to enable several multi-sense
augmented reality technologies reinforced with olfactory senses for novel
applications and solutions in the Internet of Everything (IoE). This paper
introduces the concept of odor-based molecular communication (OMC) and provides
a comprehensive examination of olfactory systems. It explores odor
communication in nature, including aspects of odor information, channels,
reception, spatial perception, and cognitive functions. Additionally, a
comprehensive comparison of various communication systems sets the foundation
for further investigation. By highlighting the unique characteristics,
advantages, and potential applications of OMC through this comparative
analysis, the paper lays the groundwork for exploring the modeling of an
end-to-end OMC channel, considering the design of OMC transmitters and
receivers, and developing innovative OMC techniques