Portable Display System for Presenting Spatial Odor and/or Airflow Distribution

Abstract

Here we report a portable wind/olfactory display system that can present a virtual airflow and/or odor source at an arbitrary position on a screen of a tablet computer. The system is named a smelling screen mini. As in our original-size smelling screen, airflows generated by four fans are made to impinge on each other, and thus, an airflow directed toward the user from a specified position on the screen is generated. By introducing odor vapor into the airflows, the odor distribution is as if odor vapor had been released from a certain position on the screen. However, it has been found that the airflows generated by the fans in the smelling screen mini are not properly impinging on each other and that the airflow directed toward the user is obliquely distorted. We have shown that the distortion is caused by the irregularities of the airflows from the fans. Experimental results are presented to show that the distortion of the airflow distribution can be effectively reduced by adding airflow straightening vanes and tapered flow paths to suppress the swirling motion of the airflows. The smelling screen mini can be used to add special effects to mobile games and electronic picture books.