Interactive Realities Lab

Current Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) environments have advanced visual and audio outputs, but the use of smell is either very limited or completely absent. Adding olfactory stimulation to current virtual environments will greatly enhance the sense of presence, or ‘realness’ of the environment. Though many attempts have been made to include olfactory displays in virtual environments, most of them were unsuccessful. In addition, there is still no standard by which to represent and playback smells. Olfactory effects could also play a crucial role in certain training environments, such as fire fighter and medical training.

Accomplishments:

The Institute for Simulation & Training (IST) at the University of Central Florida (UCF) has been researching whether the addition of an olfactory component to a VR and AR environment would improve the user’s sense of presence. We have researched olfactory devices on the market and selected the ScentKiosk system from ScentAir. We are now developing scientific studies to determine if olfaction improves VR training effectiveness.

In simulated and training applications, spatially placing a smell to be originating from a particular location might be necessary. A personalized olfactory display can achieve this task more efficiently, as it may have two individual displays for the two nostrils. The concentration and phase gradient between the two displays can make the odor appear to be originating from a particular location. Therefore, personalized olfactory displays may be more suited for simulation and training applications. Since the devices are small in size, they can easily be head-mounted or worn by the trainee.

Chemistry composition of the odorant (the particular chemical that causes the odor) is used to create the olfactory effects. It is not yet known if any smell can be generated from a combination of some basic smells. The ScentKiosk Scent Dispenser dispenses precise fragrance volumes directly to the guest user via a tube. It uses single scent cartridges and currently can hold up to three different scents. Since the cartridges are sealed when not in use, the system does not leak any scents, which is a problem for many olfactory systems. There is a single small air pump that push a small amount of air through each of these cartridges and out the hose. In general, the end of hose needs to be within 18 inches of the user’s nose. For our application we connected it to the microphone boom in order to minimize encumbrance to the user and for ease of setup. In addition, since the ScentKiosk system uses a separate hose for each scent, the different scents are not mixed.

Overall, we have integrated an olfactory system into our VR environment known as Fully Immersive Team Training (or FITT).  We are conducting experiments to determine if the olfactory modality will improve training effectiveness.  We are interested in the future application of olfactory and look forward to continued research in this area.