A new device promises to add taste as an extra dimension to virtual reality technology.
Field testing by researchers at The Ohio State University on a new interface, called “e-taste”, showed its ability to digitally simulate a range of taste intensities.
Study co-author Assistant Professor Jinghua Li said the new technology used a combination of sensors and wireless chemical dispensers to facilitate the remote perception of taste.
Assistant Professor Li said the sensors were attuned to recognize molecules like glucose and glutamate, chemicals that represented the five basic tastes of sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami.
She said once captured via an electrical signal, that data was wirelessly passed to a remote device for replication.
“The chemical dimension in the current VR and AR realm is relatively underrepresented, especially when we talk about olfaction and gustation.
“It’s a gap that needs to be filled and we’ve developed that with this next-generation system.”
Assistant Professor Li said the system utilizes an actuator with two parts: an interface to the mouth and a small electromagnetic pump.
She said the pump connected to a liquid channel of chemicals that vibrated when an electric charge passed through it, pushing the solution through a special gel layer into the mouth of the subject.
“Depending on the length of time that the solution interacts with this gel layer, the intensity and strength of any given taste can easily be adjusted.
“Based on the digital instruction, you can also choose to release one or several different tastes simultaneously so that they can form different sensations,” she said.
Read the full study: A sensor-actuator–coupled gustatory interface chemically connecting virtual and real environments for remote tasting.
