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

Abstract

Deaf-blindness limits daily human activities, especially interactive modes of audio and visual perception. Although the developed standards have been verified as alternative communication methods, they are uncommon to the nondisabled due to the complicated learning process and inefficiency in terms of communicating distance and throughput. Therefore, the development of communication techniques employing innate sensory abilities including olfaction related to the cerebral limbic system processing emotions, memories, and recognition has been suggested for reducing the training level and increasing communication efficiency. Here, a skin-integrated and wireless olfactory interface system exploiting arrays of miniaturized odor generators (OGs) based on melting/solidifying odorous wax to release smell is introduced for establishing an advanced communication system between deaf-blind and non-deaf-blind. By optimizing the structure design of the OGs, each OG device is as small as 0.24 cm3 (length × width × height of 11 mm × 10 mm × 2.2 mm), enabling integration of up to 8 OGs on the epidermis between nose and lip for direct and rapid olfactory drive with a weight of only 24.56 g. By generating single or mixed odors, different linked messages could be delivered to a user within a short period in a wireless and programmable way. By adopting the olfactory interface message delivery system, the recognition rates for the messages have been improved 1.5 times that of the touch-based method, while the response times were immensely decreased 4 times. Thus, the presented wearable olfactory interface system exhibits great potential as an alternative message delivery method for the deaf-blind.

Intelligent wearable olfactory interface for latency-free mixed reality and fast olfactory enhancement

“…The core technical parameters of the OG reported in this work show significant improvement, compared to the state-of-the-art ones, including the response time in controlling odor release, the lowest operating power consumption, overall size, stability of repeatedly switching the heating temperatures, minimum operation temperature, and maximum number of available odor types in one olfaction interface (Fig. 1f ) 2 , 4 . Due to the excellent performances of the OGs, the olfaction interfaces based on it can be utilized in various scenarios ranging from MR-based entertainment, education, olfaction recovery, and enhancement (Fig.…”

“…Olfaction, as an ancient evolutionarily critical physiologic system in humans, plays a significant role in our interaction with the surroundings, including but not limited to detecting potential hazards in the environment, shaping social behavior, smoothing negative emotions, and recalling buried memories 1 . Despite the enormous influence of olfaction on human life, a handful of olfaction-generating technologies (also called olfactory interfaces) have been developed for olfactory display in some potential applications, ranging from human–machine interactions, to education, to entertainment, and to clinical treatment 2 – 4 . Compared to the extensive research works on the development of haptic feedback technologies 5 – 13 , olfactory-generating technologies have obtained little attention in the recent years, resulting in long-term technical stagnation.…”