Practical 'Smell-o-Vision' system being developed

So far as television goes, we're pretty spoilt these days. We can now watch in 3D if we want to, on a screen that is far too big for the once traditional corner-of-the-room placement, and we can also listen to heart-stopping surround sound audio - but there's still more sensory enjoyment to come. Researchers have now managed to create a proof of concept Smell-o-Vision device potentially capable of pumping out thousands of different odors, yet small enough to fit behind a TV.

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The idea behind the two-year project was brought to researchers at the University of California, San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering by the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) in Korea. SAIT needed some help in developing a practical means of delivering odors to viewers that match a scene on a TV screen.

For their device, Professor Sungho Jin and graduate students used an X-Y matrix system to keep the circuitry to a minimum - without which, such a system would require numerous individual controllers for the thousands of odors required for a commercial system. The device has 200 X-axis controllers and 100 on the Y-axis that could selectively activate each of the 10,000 possible odors stored within numerous non-flammable silicone elastomer compartments.

Scent is generated from an aqueous solution within the compartment - such as ammonia - that's turned to gas when heated via a thin metal wire. Pressure inside the compartment builds until a short burst of odor is released by the opening of a small hole in the elastomer, and the viewer is treated to the smell shortly after.Two commercially-available perfumes were used to test the system, resulting in the volunteer tester confirming the presence of the released fragrance within 30 cm (11.8 inches) of the test chamber. Between odor bursts, the volunteer's nasal passages were cleared by exposure to coffee beans - a common practice used in perfume development to cleanse a tester's sense of smell.