Multisensorial Portable Device for Augmented Reality Experiences in Museums

This paper presents a portable device capable of enhancing the augmented reality (AR) experience to the full five senses through the stimulus of touch, taste, and smell. While most of the existing solutions for this type of devices lack portability or fail to explore all the five senses at once, in this work we introduce a new portable device that adapts to the users’ smartphone or tablet to provide a full five senses experience. This is part of a mobile five senses augmented reality system for Museums (M5SAR) project, which aims at developing an AR system to be a guide in cultural and historical events and museums, complementing or replacing the traditional orientation given by a guide, by directional signs or maps, while enhancing the users’ experience adding by new senses to the museums’ objects. The proposed device communicates via Bluetooth with an App (out of the scope of this paper) and is responsible for generating the stimuli that reproduces three senses: touch, taste, and smell, while the senses of sight and hearing are already reproduced through the users’ smartphone or tablet, allowing to explore all the human senses. The proposed hardware is powered by a rechargeable battery, giving the module portability to be used during a visit to the museum. It uses a microcontroller for the core unit, which receives instructions from the mobile application, running on the user’s smart device, and acts respectively, activating the physical interfaces to deliver the five senses experience to the user.