The Smell Engine: A system for artificial odor synthesis in virtual environments

Nebula: An Affordable Open-Source and Autonomous Olfactory Display for VR Headsets

“…In particular, they took advantage of a temperature illusion to create warm and cool sensations by mixing olfactory stimulants with trigeminal stimulants (capsaicin and eucalyptol) [5] and also employed the trigeminal nerve to create a stereo smell experience using electrical stimulations [6]. While the portable devices presented above diffuse a single odorant at a time, recent work from Bahremand et al [3] proposed a new device called The Smell Engine, capable of dynamically mixing several odorants in their vapor phase, along with a framework to operate it in Unity. de Paiva Guimarães et al [7] proposed a low-cost olfactory display, battery operated, integrated into a Google Cardboard.…”

“…All resources required to reproduce and use Nebula are made publicly available on our GitHub repository 3 and provided as supplementary materials for the reviewers. This includes (1) STL files with recommendations for 3D printing, (2) a list containing the references of the hardware components, (3) the wiring diagram for soldering the components on the Arduino, (4) the firmware to flash on the Arduino and the software to control it with Unity, and (5) two Unity scenes: the one used for conducting the user study described in Section 4.3, and a sample scene (a kitchen with a graspable orange) illustrating a use case of our device.…”

“…While the variability of the diffusion rate is low enough to have three clearly distinct diffusion rates, Nebula is not meant to be as precise as other devices available in the literature that propose a finer level of granularity (eg. [3,17]). To achieve a finer granularity, the use of a closed-loop regulation can be used.…”

Skin-Integrated Wireless Odor Message Delivery Electronics for the Deaf-blind

“…Olfaction, as an innate sensation, plays a vital role in human interaction with the surrounding environment associating with the cerebral limbic system processing emotions, recognition, and memories. − As odor recognition can be achieved with relatively minor cognitive efforts and conscious attempts through olfactory sense, external information is able to be obtained efficiently without the aid of visual and audio perception. , In addition, it is reported that olfaction is possible to be used as a complementary module for providing additional information (olfactory cues) to enhance learning, memory, and comprehension in education and life for deaf-blind individuals, such as identifying people, spaces, objects, and activities. − Compared to the conventional alternatives with a great command of languages in terms of delivering complex and customized messages, ,, as the olfaction interfaces are in the early stage, they are limited by the number of smells that can be accurately discriminated. , Accordingly, recently, a number of studies have been conducted on olfactory technologies for enhancing performance and increasing the number of firmly detectable odors. , Furthermore, the olfaction interface provides undirectional and regional propagation, which enables noncontact and wireless communication and one-to-multiple crosstalk, unlike the aforementioned alternatives. Despite their high potentiality, to date, olfaction systems where most modalities are built on rigid and bulky platforms still have critical flaws, hindering them from being widely applied for aiding deaf-blind patients, including (1) inaccurate control of odor generation that harshly decreases the recognition rate and (2) bulky size and rigidity restraining them from long-term wearability and real-time wireless message delivery. , Therefore, to overcome the mechanical mismatches and increase the accuracy of the control and recognition rate, a flexible and wearable form factor, which has mechanical and physical characteristics including light weight, bendability, twistability, stretchability, and ultrathin thickness for the olfaction interfaces has been suggested for enabling long-term wearable application with a prompt response to external input. − …”

“…22,33 Accordingly, recently, a number of studies have been conducted on olfactory technologies for enhancing performance and increasing the number of firmly detectable odors. 34,35 Furthermore, the olfaction interface provides undirectional and regional propagation, which enables noncontact and wireless communication and one-to-multiple crosstalk, unlike the aforementioned alternatives. Despite their high potentiality, to date, olfaction systems where most modalities are built on rigid and bulky platforms still have critical flaws, hindering them from being widely applied for aiding deaf-blind patients, including (1) inaccurate control of odor generation that harshly decreases the recognition rate 36 and (2) bulky size and rigidity restraining them from long-term wearability and realtime wireless message delivery.…”