philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Smelling strawberries, smoke and space in virtual reality

... LiKamWa, an associate professor in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering and an assistant professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, leads a multidisciplinary team of students and faculty from across ASU departments to incorporate realistic, environmentally-sensitive smell into VR for more than just entertainment. ...

While others have developed smell for VR, the ASU team is working on elements to enhance the experience, like incorporating different intensities of smells depending on how close the user is to a scent and combining multiple odors that can be present in the virtual environment. ...

The project known as the Smell Engine emerged from work that Tanya Harrison, former director of research at the ASU NewSpace initiative, had been leading for the university’s Interplanetary Initiative. Harrison’s original intent was to incorporate smell into virtual reality training for space exploration applications. ...

Along with LiKamWa and Smith, Harrison brought together a team that includes Research Associate Professor Richard Gerkin from the School of Life Sciences, Assistant Professor Christy Spackman from ASU's School of Arts, Media and Engineering and the School for the Future of Innovation in Society, as well as electrical engineering doctoral student Jessica Lai and computer engineering doctoral student Alireza Bahremand. ...

One of the challenges the team faces is how to mix different chemical compounds to recreate smells from the real world. This is where Lai’s role comes into play. Her first test to analyze how well the technology works is to accurately represent the smell of a strawberry in various stages of freshness. ...

See the full story here: https://news.asu.edu/20220909-smelling-strawberries-smoke-and-space-virtual-reality