Development of an Eight-Channel Wearable Olfactory Display for Virtual Reality

Abstract

The olfactory display is a tool capable of generating essential olfactory feedback, and when implemented in a wearable form integrated with virtual reality (VR) hardware, it can significantly enhance immersion. However, current olfactory displays suffer from insufficiencies including limited scent generation range, inevitable latency before perception, the persistence and diffusion of previously emitted odors, and imprecise intensity control. We present an eight-channel wearable olfactory display that mounts directly on a head-mounted display (HMD) and delivers scents with minimal latency. Through precise calibration of the microfluidic channels, the system achieves nanoliter-scale liquid delivery control, generating accessible odor concentrations ranging within 1000 ppm. An active air-cleaning mechanism effectively prevents the lingering odor. Leveraging the intrinsic advantages of the wearable form and rapid odor generation technology, the system achieves a perception latency of just 3.17 s. Finally, to address heat accumulation from onboard electronics, an active thermal convection structure was implemented. This design suppresses temperature rise by 48%, enabling its stable, long-term continuous operation. When integrated into a VR headset, the system produces a smell-enhanced environment that significantly increases subjective presence and vividness. This platform provides a compact, low-latency solution for olfactory augmentation in immersive media and human–computer interaction (HCI) research.