Application and Design of Scent Display Device for Head-Mounted Display

Studies to augment emotion and immersion in multimedia content through olfactory stimulation are being increasingly conducted in the past two decades, and a variety of scent devices have been developed. Most of the scent devices are very large and heavy; consequently, they are installed on a table rather than being attached to the Head-mounted Display (HMD). Even if such devices are mounted on the HMD, it is not possible to control the scent density because of the size limitation, and it is not easy to be immersed in the experience because of the noise caused by the scent device. In order for an actual virtual reality or an augmented reality system to work efficiently with the scent device, three conditions - noiseless, a compact design, and concentration control- must be satisfied. In this study, we design a scent device that satisfies these three conditions. By using a miniature piezoelectric pump, a small size scent device is designed so that it can be easily attached to the lower end of the HMD, and hardly any noise is generated. Moreover, it is possible to control the concentration of the scent by controlling the piezoelectric pump using amplitude and frequency.

HMD용 발향장치 설계와 적용