Controller for scent diffusing device and a server for supporting the controller

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016231720-A1
Application number	US-201615016557-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Feb 5, 2016
Priority date	Feb 6, 2015
Publication date	Aug 11, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

Disclosed are a customized scent diffusing device and a customized scent diffusing method for effectively transferring sensibility which can be felt from contents to a user by diffusing a most appropriate scent by synchronization with digital contents. According to various exemplary embodiments of the present invention, although odor effect information in 4D contents does not correspond to a spice cartridge configuration in a scent diffusing device, an appropriate odor can be provided through combining or mixing spice cartridges in the scent diffusing device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A controller for a scent diffusing device for controlling a scent diffusing device including a plurality of spice cartridges, the controller comprising:
an analysis module determining an odor to be generated by the scent diffusing device based on odor effect information received from the outside and configuration information of the plurality of spice cartridges; and a control module transmitting a scent diffusing control message corresponding to the determined odor to the scent diffusing device.

2 . The controller of claim 1 , wherein when a spice cartridge corresponding to the odor effect information does not exist among the plurality of spice cartridges, the analysis module transmits to a server the configuration information of the plurality of spice cartridges and the odor effect information, receives alternate odor effect information from the server, and determines the odor to be generated by the scent diffusing device according to the alternate odor effect information.

3 . The controller of claim 2 , wherein the alternate odor effect information includes concentration level information for combining spices included in one or more spice cartridges among the plurality of spice cartridges.

4 . The controller of claim 1 , further comprising:
a content processing module receiving an AV signal and contents including odor effect information which interlocks with the AV signal from the outside and extracting the AV signal from the contents; and a synchronization module generating a synchronization signal for synchronizing reproduction of the extracted AV signal and odor generation by the scent diffusing device and transferring the generated synchronization signal to the control module, wherein the control module transmits the scent diffusing control message to the scent diffusing device according to the synchronization signal.

5 . The controller claim 4 , wherein the contents includes broadcasting contents, and
the odor effect information is included in broadcasting organization information for the broadcasting contents.

6 . The controller of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the odor effect information and the scent diffusing control message follows an MPEG-V standard.

7 . A server for providing alternate odor effect information to a controller of a scent diffusing device, which controls a scent diffusing device, the server comprising:
an alternate scent database storing combination information of a reference scent for a composite scent; and a management module receiving odor effect information and configuration information of a plurality of spice cartridges included in the scent diffusing device from the controller for the scent diffusing device and generating, when the odor effect information includes information on the composite scent, the alternate odor effect information including the combination information of the reference scent by referring to the alternate scent database, wherein the reference scent is an odor by a spice included in at least one spice cartridge among the plurality of spice cartridges.

8 . The server of claim 7 , wherein the combination information includes concentration level information of the reference scent.

9 . The server of claim 8 , wherein the concentration level information is based on a membership grade representing an association between the composite scent and a center of the reference scent.

10 . The server of claim 9 , wherein the membership degree is obtained by using a Fuzzy C-means (FCM) algorithm.

Assignees

• Electronics & Telecommunications Res Inst

Inventors

• Choi Ji Hoon
• Ahn Chung Hyun

Classifications

• A61L9/125 Primary

  emanating multiple odours · CPC title

• G05B2219/24151

  Inhibit programming if physical resources are missing, no gas for heating · CPC title

• G05B19/041 Primary

  Function-oriented details · CPC title

• A61L2209/133

  Replaceable cartridges, refills · CPC title

• G05B15/02

  electric · CPC title