JP2007054445A - Aromatic emission controller and method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an aromatic emission controller capable of comparatively easily obtaining a desired aromatic space in a desired state, and to provide a method. <P>SOLUTION: The aromatic emission controller emits aromatic by an emitting means 3, and includes: means 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d for storing at least one kind of aromatic; means 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d for storing at least one kind of deodorizing material; and a measuring means for measuring the reaction of a living body being the object of the aromatic emission. And further, the controller includes a control means for controlling the emission of the aromatic 2a, 2b, 2c, 2d and the deodorizing materials 2a, 2b, 2c, 2d by the emitting means 3, based on information of the biological reaction measured by the measuring means. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

The present invention relates to a fragrance blowing control apparatus and method capable of controlling or changing an air environment by a fragrance using a fragrance and a deodorant material.

In recent years, as typified by aromatherapy, it has become common in daily life to dissipate human stress by aroma, to obtain a feeling of comfort, and to increase concentration. It is also known that information is obtained or transmitted by fragrance. As described above, since the scent acting on the olfactory sense of a living body is becoming very important in life, several methods for generating a good scent have been proposed. As a typical method of the aroma therapy, a method of evaporating a scent material (fragrance) called aroma oil with heat and releasing the scent into the air is employed. However, this method is suitable for the case where a single scented material is continuously released, but it is difficult to change the scent according to taste or physical condition or to mix each material arbitrarily. is there.

In view of this, a method has been proposed in which the scent material is blown out using an ink jet system used in a printer (see Patent Document 1). According to this method, the scent material can be freely selected and mixed by mounting the scent material on the ink tank. In addition, if a deodorant material is installed in this ink tank and the deodorant material is released in the same manner as the scent material, the scent of the already released fragrance can be deodorized. it can.

In addition, a technique has been proposed that monitors the central rhythm of the living body, calculates the degree of comfort and relaxation of the living body, and controls the amount of fragrance released so that the concentration of the fragrance is appropriate according to the state of the living body. (See Patent Document 2).
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-146385 JP 2002-282231 A

However, what is important in scent release and deodorization is how to control and release those materials. For example, it is known that the scent becomes accustomed with time, and even if the scent material continues to be released in the same manner, the sensation that the living body receives from the scent gradually becomes dull. Therefore, in order to continue to create a continuous comfortable space with scents, it is important to control the release. It is important to control only the scent material at this time, so the effect is limited. Therefore, both the scent material and the deodorant material are based on reactions such as human comfort, relaxation, and high lift. Is to control.

In view of the above problems, the perfume blowing or release control device of the present invention is a perfume blowing control device that blows out a perfume with a blowing means such as an ink jet method or a conventional sprayer, and has the following means. That is, it has means for storing at least one kind of fragrance, means for storing at least one kind of deodorant material, and measuring means for measuring the reaction of a living body that is the target of fragrance blowing. And it has a control means which controls the blowing-out of the fragrance | flavor and the deodorizing material by the said blowing means based on the information of the biological reaction measured by the said measuring means. The measurement means may be, for example, a contact type (a method in which a measurement means is attached to an appropriate part of a living body and a measurement) or a non-contact type (a method in which infrared rays are applied to an appropriate part of a living body). Measure.

In the fragrance blowing control apparatus having the above-described configuration, it is preferable to control any one of the following factors or a combination thereof based on biological reaction information. Factors include the type of fragrance and deodorant material, the amount of blowout per unit time, the blowout and pause time in unit time (ie, the blowout duty ratio), the blowout concentration, the blowout frequency (ie, the number of blowouts in unit time), the material to be blown out There are droplet sizes. These factors are determined in advance so that the device automatically selects and executes control based on the scent space mode input / instructed to the device by the user at the time of use and the information on the biological reaction, for example. It has been programmed. Alternatively, the apparatus may select a factor based on an input / instruction from the outside, and the apparatus may execute control of the selected factor based on the instructed scent space mode and the biological reaction information. May be programmed.

Moreover, in the fragrance | flavor blowing control apparatus of the said structure, the following databases are stored in the apparatus, and an apparatus will perform control with reference to such a database. The contents of the database include the effects of fragrances on living body sensations (comfort, relaxation, concentration, elevation, etc.), the relationship between the fragrance blowing mode and the effects on living sensations, biological reactions and living body sensations. And the effects of deodorant materials. Some of these data may be measured and collected for each individual before use, or may be stored in advance by creating something that seems to apply to the majority of people. Also good.

The biological reaction here refers to the reaction of all living bodies (including the human body) such as brain waves, blood pressure, respiration, body temperature, blood flow, sweating, and pulse, and is measured according to the purpose of the fragrance blowing control device or method. The reaction can be selected.

The deodorizing material to be used is preferably a type that is chemically neutralized and deodorized, such as a toilet deodorant, or a type that adsorbs and removes odor components. However, depending on the case, a deodorizing type by blowing out another odor can be used, and there is no particular limitation on the deodorizing mechanism of the deodorizing material. Any material that can be blown out by an inkjet method, a spray method, or the like may be used. Moreover, the deodorizing material may correspond to deodorization of individual fragrances, or may correspond to deodorization of a plurality of fragrances.

As the blowing means, there are an ink jet method, a method using a conventional sprayer, etc., but the ink jet method is suitable for controlling a fine scent space. As long as the scent control is performed in a space having a certain size, a method using a conventional sprayer may be used because fine blowout control is not necessary. However, for example, when controlling the personal scent space by bringing the blowing nozzle near the user's nose, an ink jet system capable of fine blowing control is suitable.

As an example of the scent space mode that is input / instructed to the device by the user at the time of use, the perfume blowing, the perfume blowing stop, the deodorizing material There is a mode to repeat the balloon cycle.

In view of the above problems, the fragrance blowing or release control method of the present invention is a fragrance blowing control method for blowing out fragrance by blowing means such as an ink jet method or a conventional sprayer method, and includes the following steps. That is, it includes a step of measuring the reaction of the living body that is the target of the fragrance blowing, and a step of controlling the blowing of the fragrance and the blowing of the deodorant material based on the measured biological reaction information.

According to the present invention, since biological reaction information is obtained and the release of the scent material and the deodorant material is controlled based on the information, the desired scent space can be created in a desired manner relatively easily. become.

Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described. This embodiment can be implemented by, for example, the apparatus shown in FIG. 1 and the control flow shown in FIG. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a blowing unit of a fragrance blowing control device. Reference numerals 1a, 1b, 1c, and 1d denote cartridges that store individual materials (fragrance material or deodorant material) to be blown out.

In order to implement this embodiment, the materials in the four cartridges 1a, 1b, 1c, and 1d must each have at least one scent material and deodorant material. 2a, 2b, 2c, and 2d schematically show the droplets after the material is blown out. In FIG. 1, the blowing amount of 2a and 2b is small, and the blowing amount of 2c and 2d is large. However, each balloon can be controlled arbitrarily. Reference numeral 3 denotes an ink jet blow head from which material is blown into the air.

FIG. 2 schematically shows an example of a flow relating to measurement of a biological reaction and blowout control. In the flow shown in FIG. 2, the change in the biological reaction due to the fragrance blowing is measured and analyzed to feed back the blowing content, that is, the type, amount, time, frequency, etc. of the blowing material, and new blowing conditions are set. decide. The condition is transmitted to the control system by a signal, and the blowing of the scent material or deodorant material is determined and blown out. After the balloon is blown out, the biological reaction caused thereby is measured again to return to the beginning, and a desired effect (for example, obtaining a predetermined scent effect continuously) can be achieved.

Here, the analysis is performed based on various stored data. This data shows the effects of fragrance materials and deodorant materials based on the types of scent spaces, the effects of fragrance materials and deodorant materials, the difference between the current biological reaction and the biological reactions in the target fragrance space, etc. This is data for determining how to blow out which material in consideration.

According to the present embodiment, for example, the following effects can be achieved.
1. Depending on the user's preferences and feelings, any scent can be blown out every hour, and it can be deodorized freely. Such preferences, feelings, and methods of processing are usually input and instructed first by the user to the device.
2. By measuring the user's biological reaction and combining the release of the scent material and the release of the deodorant material, for example, a comfortable scent space can be automatically created continuously.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described with more specific examples. However, the present invention is not limited thereby.

(Preliminary experiment)
Using the apparatus shown in FIG. 1, a fragrance and a deodorizing material were blown out. The materials to be blown out are (1) lemon fragrance, (2) vanilla fragrance, (3) herb fragrance, and (4) adsorption-type deodorant material as deodorant materials, totaling four materials each. The evaluation was carried out by blowing alone.

A person to be a test subject was placed in front of the blowing control device, and the test subject affixed a sampling terminal for measuring sweating to measure sweating, and measured the sweating state.

By raising the fragrance of (1) to (3) from the blowing control device toward the subject, an increase in sweating was confirmed in all of the fragrances, but when the deodorizing material of (4) was blown out, the increase in sweating Was not seen.

In addition, when the fragrances (1) to (3) are continuously blown out, the amount of increase in sweating of the user decreases with time, and after a while, the state returns to the original state before blowing out, It was confirmed that I got used to it.

(Example 1)
Example 1 will be described. In Example 1, referring to the result of the preliminary experiment, in order to maintain the effect of the fragrance, the following fragrance and deodorant material blowing control is performed using the blowing means, the measuring means, and the control means.

Using the apparatus shown in FIG. 1, the amount of increase in sweating of the subject measured and confirmed when the lemon flavor is first blown is set to 100, and then the blowout is continued. As a result, when the increase in the amount of sweat falls to the first half (50), the blowing of the lemon flavor is stopped and the blowing of the deodorant material is started. Further, after that, when the amount of perspiration becomes the original state (the above amount of perspiration increase is 0), the lemon flavor of (1) is blown out again.

These steps were taken as one cycle, and continuous blowout evaluation was performed. As a result of this implementation, it was confirmed that even when the number of blowouts exceeded 10, no decrease in the amount of perspiration was observed, and the effect of the fragrance was maintained. Such an operation may be programmed to be performed automatically on the device side when the user selects a fragrance, or input / instruction of mode selection from the outside (input of the fragrance space mode of maintaining the fragrance effect) The device may be programmed to execute based on the instruction).

(Example 2)
In the second embodiment, the blowout control is performed in the same manner as in the first embodiment except that the vanilla flavor is blown out. As a result, it was confirmed that the vanilla flavor was maintained with a higher flavor effect than when it was not controlled. The same was true for herbal fragrances.

(Example 3)
In Example 3, blowout control is performed in the same manner as in Example 1 except that lemon flavor, vanilla flavor, and herb flavor are blown out simultaneously. Here again, it was confirmed that a higher perfume effect was maintained than when it was not controlled.

(Comparative example)
In order to verify the effect of the above-described example, intermittent blowing was continuously performed using the apparatus shown in FIG. 1 as one cycle of blowing out the lemon flavor for 10 seconds and stopping for 10 seconds. As a result, in the flavor of lemon, the amount of sweating was smaller at the second and subsequent blowouts than when it was blown first, and when continued, there was a tendency for the amount of sweating to increase as the number increased. A similar trend was seen with the flavors of vanilla and herbs.

As a result, it was confirmed that the effect of the perfume can be maintained in a relatively high state by appropriately controlling the timing of blowing the perfume and the deodorant material based on the measurement result of the human biological reaction. It was. Thus, the effect of the above example was proved.

(Example 4)
The influence of the fragrance blowing can also be evaluated by measuring the biological reaction change with the blood flow rate or the respiratory rate of the person in a resting state. In Example 4, the measurement is basically performed in the same manner as in the case of the sweating measurement in Example 1. In general, the amount of sweat changes with a stimulus response to an odor, whereas the blood flow rate decreases due to an external stimulus, and the respiratory rate increases due to the stimulus.

In this embodiment, the blood flow rate and the respiratory rate are measured, and the blowout control of the fragrance and the deodorant material is performed based on the measurement result. As in the case of sweating, the biological reaction change due to the first scent release is set to 100. Then, the amount of change in the biological reaction gradually decreases from 100 only by releasing the scent without combining with deodorization. However, it was found that the amount of change in biological reaction can be maintained by combining with deodorization, and the effect can be sustained.

For example, when the scent is first smelled, the blood flow is reduced by 20%, but the scent release only gradually reduces the decrease and eventually disappears. However, when combined with deodorization, the reduction amount is stabilized at about 15%. The respiratory rate increased by 90% with the first scent, but the increase gradually decreased and remained unchanged. However, when combined with deodorization, it remains above 60%. Based on these findings, in Example 4, in order to maintain the effect of the fragrance, using the blowing means, the measuring means, and the control means, the fragrance and the deodorizing material are basically the same as in Example 1. Perform alternate blowout control.

In the above embodiment, the blowout control of the fragrance and the deodorant material is performed based on the measurement result of the measuring means mainly for the purpose of maintaining the effect of the fragrance. However, the present invention can also be applied in various other modes when blowout control of the fragrance and the deodorant material is performed based on the measurement result of the measurement means. For example, let us consider a case where moderate relaxation and tension can be alternately felt by the user's first mode setting input / instruction to the device. In this case, the control means controls so as to alternately blow out the fragrance that gives a sense of relaxation, its deodorizing material, the fragrance that gives a sense of tension, and its deodorizing material while observing the measurement result of the measuring means.

The figure which shows the blowing control apparatus of the fragrance | flavor and deodorant material of an inkjet system of an example which implements this invention. The flow chart of blowing control by biological reaction measurement.

Explanation of symbols

1a, 1b, 1c, 1d: Means (cartridge) for storing perfume or deodorant material
2a, 2b, 2c, 2d: blown out fragrance or deodorant material
3: Blowout means (inkjet blowout head)

Claims (7)

A fragrance blowing control device that blows out fragrance with a blowing means,
Means for storing at least one fragrance;
Means for storing at least one deodorant material;
A measuring means for measuring a reaction of a living body which is a target of a fragrance blowing,
Control means for controlling the blowing of the fragrance and the blowing of the deodorant material by the blowing means based on the information of the biological reaction measured by the measuring means;
The fragrance | flavor blowing control apparatus characterized by having. The control means, based on the information of the biological reaction to be measured, the type of fragrance and deodorant material, the amount of blowing per unit time, the blowing duty ratio defined by the blowing time and pause time in unit time, the blowing concentration, 2. The fragrance blowing control device according to claim 1, wherein the fragrance blowing control device is configured to control any one of a blowing frequency, a droplet size of a material to be blown out, or a combination thereof. 3. The control means according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the control means is configured to repeat a cycle of blowing a fragrance, stopping the blowing of the fragrance, and blowing a deodorant material so that the effect of the fragrance is maintained. The fragrance | flavor blowing control apparatus of description. 4. The fragrance blowing control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the blowing means blows out the material by an ink jet method. A fragrance blowing control method for blowing out fragrance with a blowing means,
Measuring the reaction of the living body that is the target of the fragrance blowing,
A step of controlling the blowing of the fragrance and the blowing of the deodorant material by the blowing means based on the information of the biological reaction to be measured;
The fragrance | flavor blowing-out control method characterized by having. 6. The perfume blowing control method according to claim 5, wherein, in the control step, a cycle of blowing a perfume, stopping the blowing of the perfume, and blowing a deodorant material are repeated so that the effect of the perfume is maintained. 7. The fragrance blowing control method according to claim 5, wherein the fragrance blowing and the deodorizing material are blown out by an ink jet method.

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