Computer Science Colloquium, 2003-2004

David Harel
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Weizmann Institute
December 24th, 2003

Towards an Odor Communication and Synthesis System

We propose a setup for an odor communication and synthesis system. The applications of such a scheme are essentially limitless: from e-commerce, games and video via the food and cosmetics industry to medical diagnosis. The various parts of the approach will be described, and ways to realize them will be outlined. Our approach enables an output device --- the whiffer (a sort of smell printer) --- to release an imitation of an odor read in by an input device --- the sniffer (e.g., an electronic nose) --- upon command. The heart of the system is the novel mathematical/algorithmic scheme that makes the scheme feasible. We have been carrying out a large amount of work researching and developing some of the components that constitute the scheme, many of which have to do with the understanding and analysis of electronic nose space, including odor identification and classification and mixing. The talk will report on these results too.


Shuly Wintner
Last modified: Mon Dec 22 12:07:35 IST 2003