Wearable Olfactory Display: Using Odor in Outdoor Environment

Abstract

Recently, there are various types of display systems that can present aural, visual and haptic information related to the user’s position. It is also important to present olfactory information related to the user’s position, and we focus on the spatiality of odor, which is one of its characteristics. In this research, we constructed and evaluated a wearable olfactory display to present the spatiality of odor in an outdoor environment. The prototype wearable olfactory display system treats odor in the gaseous state, and the odor air is conveyed to the user’s nose through tubes. Using this system, we also present the spatiality of odor by controlling the odor strength according to the positions of the user and the odor source. With this prototype system, the user can specify the position of the odor source in an outdoor environment. To improve this prototype system, we constructed another wearable olfactory display. Because odor is treated in the gaseous state, the first prototype system has some problems such as the large size of the device and unintentional leakage of the odor into the environment. To solve these issues, we developed and evaluated an advanced wearable olfactory display that uses an inkjet head device to treat odor in the liquid state.