KR101647713B1 - Electronic fragrance apparatus using semiconductor device and piezoelectric material - Google Patents

Abstract

According to the present invention, a directional material is formed on a piezoelectric material of a micro electromechanical system (MEMS) device, which is manufactured using a semiconductor processing technique and is coupled with a piezoelectric material, and a MEMS device is driven using a sound wave or an electric signal, To realize artificial olfactory technology. This will play a major role in the development of augmented reality technology, which is emerging as one of the core technologies of the future society. In domestic technology, telemedicine diagnosis, broadcasting, marketing, product manufacturing and process management, Game industry, mobile solution, education, and the like, and can be applied as a technology to solve problems such as highly industrialized, various environmental pollution caused by an increase in the elderly population, mental diseases, and geriatric brain diseases.

Description

[0001] The present invention relates to an electronic fragrance apparatus using a semiconductor device and a piezoelectric material,

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic smell diffusion apparatus, and more particularly, to a semiconductor element for implementing an artificial smell technique and an electronic smell diffusion apparatus using a piezoelectric material.

The augmented reality developed as an alternative to virtual reality has been actively researched recently and it is considered to be one of the core technologies of the future society, and its ripple effect is great and its application fields are endless.

In order to develop such a virtual reality technology, a variety of displays, sound and artificial sensing technology have been studied, and a significant level of development has been made to be used in real life.

In contrast to the development of various visual, auditory, and tactile embedding technologies, the olfactory embedding technology lags considerably. Recently, only a few prototypes have been developed.

However, recent developments related to the implementation of olfactory technology have led to the enhancement of the augmented reality technology, which is utilized in remote medical diagnosis, broadcasting, marketing, architectural design, product manufacturing and process control, game industry, mobile solution and education, Is rapidly increasing year by year.

These technologies related to the olfactory implementation can be used to alleviate or treat mental harm or disease or geriatric mental diseases caused by various environmental pollution caused by the progress of industrial advancement and aging. In the extreme environments (space, coal mine, deep sea, ) Can be used to maintain mental health and prevent depression.

Various techniques have been attempted to implement the artificial olfactory embodyment technique, but a basic method of spraying the aroma raw material has been used as a representative method. However, as a method of simple raw material injection, it is difficult to spray various kinds of aroma raw materials necessary for realizing an augmented reality, space-time direction, and most of all, there is a problem that a direction device becomes large due to a large volume of a container and a pump for storing aroma raw materials for a direction happened.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and it is an object of the present invention to provide an electronic smell diffusion apparatus which can overcome the disadvantages of the conventional directional technology and improve the ease of use and efficiency.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a small electronic smell diffusion apparatus capable of accurately spraying various fragrant materials and a desired space-time.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been accomplished in order to solve the above problems, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a piezoelectric device, which is fabricated by using a semiconductor processing technique and which applies a flavorant to a piezoelectric material of a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) The MEMS device is driven to diffuse the desired flavorant material to realize the artificial olfactory technology.

That is, the electro-erosion device according to the present invention includes: a MEMS device manufactured using semiconductor processing technology and including at least one erosion electrode to which a piezoelectric material is bonded; An odorant material applied on the piezoelectric material; And a drive control unit for controlling driving of the MEMS device.

Here, the drive control unit may generate a sound wave having a frequency corresponding to the smell diffusion information to control driving of the MEMS element, and the frequency may be a frequency of an audible range (20 to 20000 Hz) to an ultrasonic band .

The driving control unit may further include a sound recognition unit for recognizing sound or sound, and the drive control unit may generate a sound wave having a frequency corresponding to the sound recognition information included in the sound recognition unit, Control.

Meanwhile, the driving control unit may generate an electric signal corresponding to the smell diffusion information to control driving of the MEMS element.

The odor information may include information for identifying one or more erosion electrodes to be driven, and the erosion information may further include operation time information of the at least one erosion electrode.

The driving control unit may store the information for identifying one or more odorant electrodes to be driven and the odor information including the operating time information of the at least one odoriferous electrode, Can be controlled.

The apparatus may further include a memory for storing information for identifying one or more odorant electrodes to be driven by the electronic malodor analyzer and smell diffusion information including operation time information of the odorant electrodes, The driving of the MEMS device may be controlled according to the information.

Using a semiconductor device and an electronic smell diffusion apparatus using a piezoelectric material according to an embodiment of the present invention can play an important role in the development of augmented reality technology, which is one of the core technologies of the future society, .

This can be utilized for telemedicine diagnosis, broadcasting, marketing, product manufacturing and process management, game industry, mobile solution, education and the like, which do not meet the utilization technologies with domestic technology at present. It can be widely applied to the development of application technology of augmented reality.

It can also be applied as a technology to solve problems such as high industrialization, various environmental pollution caused by an increase in the elderly population, mental diseases, and geriatric brain diseases.

1 shows a semiconductor device and an electronic smell diffusion apparatus using a piezoelectric material according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 shows a semiconductor device and a driving method of an electronic smell diffusion apparatus using a piezoelectric material according to the first embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 3 shows a semiconductor device and a driving method of an electronic smell diffusion apparatus using a piezoelectric material according to a second embodiment of the present invention.
4 is a flowchart showing a method of driving a semiconductor device and an electronic smell diffusion apparatus using a piezoelectric material according to a first embodiment of the present invention.
5 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a semiconductor device and an electronic smell diffusion apparatus using a piezoelectric material according to a third embodiment of the present invention.
6 is a flowchart showing a method of driving a semiconductor device and an electronic smell diffusion apparatus using a piezoelectric material according to a third embodiment of the present invention.
7 is a flowchart showing a method of driving a semiconductor device and an electronic smell diffusion apparatus using a piezoelectric material according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

Hereinafter, a semiconductor device, an electronic smell diffusion device using a piezoelectric material, and a driving method thereof according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. In the following description of the present invention, a detailed description of known functions and configurations incorporated herein will be omitted when it may make the subject matter of the present invention rather unclear.

1 shows a semiconductor device and an electronic smell diffusion apparatus using a piezoelectric material according to an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 1, an electronic device 10 using a semiconductor device and a piezoelectric material according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a plurality of erosive electrodes 110, 120, Is a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) with coupled piezoelectric materials.

The odoriferous electrodes 110, 120, ... are combined with the piezoelectric materials 111, 121, ... and the smelling materials 112, 122, ... are formed on the piezoelectric materials 111, 121, It is coated.

Examples of a method of applying the flavoring material 112, 122, ... to the piezoelectric material 111, 121, ... include a method of mixing the flavoring material with the hydrogel or polymer to form the piezoelectric material 111, 121,. ..) can be used.

The odoriferous electrodes 110, 120, ... may be formed as many as necessary, and the odoriferous electrodes 110, 120, ... may be coated with different odoriferous materials.

In the drawing, the sizes of the piezoelectric materials 111, 121, ... and the smelling materials 112, 122, ... applied on the electrodes are different from each other in order to distinguish the smell electrodes, But it is needless to say that they may be constructed in the same size. Further, the same smelling material may be applied to two or more odoriferous electrodes 110, 120, ....

Each odoriferous electrode 110, 120, ... can be operated by a sound wave or an electric signal. That is, the piezoelectric material operates by generating a vibration by an ultrasonic wave or an electric signal, and the concentration of the fragrance can be adjusted by adjusting the intensity of a sound wave or an electric signal applied to the erosion electrode.

2 and 3 show a semiconductor device and a driving method of an electronic smell diffusion apparatus using a piezoelectric material according to the first and second embodiments of the present invention, which are operated by a sound wave and an electric signal, respectively.

As shown in Fig. 2, each odoriferous electrode 110, 120, ... can be driven by a sound wave. The sound wave includes information for identifying the erroneous electrodes 110, 120, ... to be operated, for example, information on the electrode number and the operation time.

At this time, the kind of sound waves used for diffusion of the smell diffusion material varies depending on the case where the electronic smell diffusion apparatus is used, and may be a usual sound like that generated in a TV or the like, and may be a sound in the audible range (20 to 20,000 Hz) Gt; Hz). ≪ / RTI >

In the electromagnetic smell diffusion apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention, vibrations are generated by a resonance phenomenon in a sound wave having a specific frequency, and corresponding smell diffusion electrodes (120 in FIG.

In order to apply the smell diffusion driving method using sound waves, when an input signal for a particular smell to be emitted is given, sound having a frequency corresponding to the resonance frequency of the electrode to which the specific smell material is coupled is generated, Or may recognize a sound or sound and transform it into a corresponding sound wave of a specific frequency. Two driving methods are described in more detail below.

4 is a flowchart showing a method of driving a semiconductor device and an electronic smell diffusion apparatus using a piezoelectric material according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

4, when the smell diffusion information (smell type and time) is determined (S410), the smell diffusion information is converted into sound information of a corresponding frequency (S420), and sound waves are generated using the converted sound information (S430).

The piezoelectric material on the erosion electrode corresponding to the sound wave is vibrated by the generated sound wave for the operation time to perform erosion (S440).

Here, the steps S410 and S420 may be performed by an electric electronic device not shown in Fig. 2, and such an apparatus may be integrated and integrated into an electronic smell diffusion apparatus if necessary.

In addition, when the input signal is a sound wave (ultrasonic wave), the step of converting the smell diffusion information into the sound wave information may be omitted, and if necessary, the sound signal may be used as a sound wave signal for operating the corresponding smell diffusion electrode.

It is also possible to drive the electronic smell diffusion apparatus through voice (or acoustic) recognition, rather than directly using the sound waves shown in FIG. For example, if a TV grabs a grape harvest from a grape farm and the narrator says "grape farm", the voice recognition system recognizes the word "grape farm" and signals the eroded electrode To spread the grape flavor.

5 is a block diagram briefly showing a configuration of an electronic smell diffusion apparatus according to a third embodiment of the present invention using speech recognition.

As shown in FIG. 5, the electronic smell diffusion apparatus according to the third embodiment of the present invention includes a speech recognition unit 510 for transforming ordinary sounds into sound waves of a specific frequency, a perfume mapping unit A sound generating unit 530 and an erosion electrode 540. The sound generating unit 530 generates sound waves of a corresponding frequency using information according to the perfume mapping.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating a method of driving the electro-erosion apparatus according to the third embodiment of the present invention as shown in FIG.

As shown in FIG. 6, when speech is recognized by the speech recognition unit 510 (S610), smell diffusion information is extracted from the recognized speech (S620). Extraction of the smell information is a process of extracting a word or syllable related to the perfume from the recognized voice as in the case of the "grape farm" above, and may be omitted if necessary.

In step S640, the extracted smell diffusion information is converted to corresponding sound wave information in step S630. In step S640, sound waves corresponding to the corresponding frequency are generated.

FIG. 3 shows a driving method of an electroactive device according to a second embodiment of the present invention operated by an electric signal, and FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a driving method of an electroactive device according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIGS. 3 and 7, information for identifying the odoriferous electrodes 110, 120, ... to be operated, for example, an electric signal including an electrode number and operation time information, Thereby driving the apparatus 10.

That is, when an electrical signal indicative of the smell diffusion information is input to the electronic smell diffusion apparatus (S710), the smell diffusion electrode operates to cause smell diffusion (S720).

The form and generation method of the electric signal are not limited to specific examples, and the electric or electronic device for generating the electric signal may be incorporated in the electrodemographic apparatus 10 or a device separate from the electrodemographic apparatus 10.

On the other hand, in the case of using the speech recognition unit as in the second embodiment described above, it is also possible to convert the smell diffusion information acquired through the thus-recognized information into an electric signal to drive the electronic smell diffusion apparatus 10.

In the above-described embodiment, a method of recognizing a sound wave of an external multimedia device or an external environment, or receiving an externally supplied signal and converting the signal into smell diffusion information to drive the electronic smell diffusion apparatus 10 has been described. However, It is also possible to preliminarily store information in the electronic smell diffusion apparatus 10 and thus to erase the information. That is, a program for smell diffusion is stored in advance in a storage unit in the driving unit of the electronic smell diffusion apparatus 10 or in the storage unit in the electronic smell diffusion apparatus 10 capable of exchanging information with the driving unit of the smell diffusion apparatus, It is possible to use an active smell diffusion method which gives a specific smell.

As described above, the use of the semiconductor device and the electromagnetic smell diffusion apparatus using the piezoelectric material according to the embodiment of the present invention can realize the smell technology with ease, and thus the technology of the augmented reality, which is one of the core technologies of the future society, It is expected to play a big role.

In particular, it can be applied not only to various fragrance raw materials at an accurate capacity and time but also to various electronic devices since it does not require a bulky apparatus such as a container or a pump for storing fragrant raw materials.

While the present invention has been described in connection with what is presently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments, but is capable of various modifications within the scope of the invention. Therefore, the scope of the present invention should not be limited by the illustrated embodiments, but should be determined by the scope of the appended claims and equivalents thereof.

Claims (9)

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices fabricated using semiconductor processing techniques and comprising at least one erosion electrode coupled with a piezoelectric material;
An odorant material applied on the piezoelectric material; And
And a drive control unit for controlling driving of the MEMS element,
Wherein the drive control unit generates a sound wave having a frequency corresponding to the smell diffusion information to control driving of the MEMS element,
And a voice recognition section for recognizing a voice or sound,
Wherein the drive control unit generates a sound wave having a frequency corresponding to the smell detection information included in the sound or sound recognized by the speech recognition unit and controls driving of the MEMS element.
delete The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the frequency is a frequency of an audible range (20 to 20000 Hz) to an ultrasonic range (20000 > Hz).

delete The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the drive control unit generates an electric signal corresponding to the erosion information to control driving of the MEMS element.
The method according to any one of claims 1, 3, and 5,
Wherein the smell diffusion information includes information for identifying one or more erosion electrodes to be driven.
The method according to claim 6,
Wherein the smell diffusion information further includes operation time information of the at least one MEMS element.
The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the drive control unit stores information for identifying one or more erosion electrodes to be driven and erosion information including operation time information of the at least one erosion electrode,
And controlling driving of the MEMS element according to the stored smell diffusion information.
The method according to claim 1,
Further comprising a memory for storing smell diffusion information including information for identifying one or more smell diffusion electrodes to be activated and operation time information for the at least one smell diffusion electrode,
Wherein the drive control unit controls driving of the MEMS element according to the stored smell diffusion information.

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