Scent Delivery Scheduling for Conflicting Event Exclusion Periods
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing scent delivery systems lack the ability to efficiently manage conflicting scent activation and deactivation schedules across multiple scent delivery units, leading to potential overlap and interference in scent profiles, which can affect customer perception and experience in environments like hotels and retail settings.
Innovation Solution
A network-controlled scent delivery system with a central controller that schedules events and anti-events, generating command data to prioritize anti-events over conflicting scheduled events, ensuring precise control and deactivation of scent delivery units during specified periods, and allowing for manual override and scent exclusion periods.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple scheduled events are used to control scent delivery units, then scent delivery can be customized for various activities and events, but conflicts between scheduled events and anti-events may occur leading to overlapping and interfering scent profiles
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary identification of conflicting time periods between scheduled events and anti-events before generating command data. By detecting conflicts in advance and establishing a priority rule that gives anti-events precedence, the system prevents overlapping scent profiles from occurring, thereby maintaining scent profile consistency while preserving event customization capabilities
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the control parameter state by switching from equal treatment of scheduled events and anti-events to a hierarchical priority structure where anti-events have higher priority. This parameter change in control logic resolves conflicts by determining that during conflicting periods, anti-event control specifications override scheduled event specifications, ensuring reliable scent profile delivery
2Adaptability or versatility
If scheduled events are given priority to maintain event-specific scent profiles, then event customization is achieved, but unwanted scents may be delivered during periods when scent exclusion is needed
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies preliminary anti-action by establishing anti-events that preemptively block scheduled events during conflicting periods. The priority rule ensures that when a scheduled event and anti-event conflict, the anti-event's deactivation command takes precedence, preventing unwanted scent delivery during periods when scent exclusion is required, thus eliminating the harmful effect of inappropriate scent exposure
3Reliability
If the system monitors and resolves conflicts between scheduled events and anti-events, then scent profile consistency is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs conflict detection and priority determination in advance during the command data generation phase, before commands are sent to scent delivery units. By identifying conflicting time periods and applying the anti-event priority rule upfront, the system resolves conflicts efficiently without requiring complex real-time arbitration mechanisms, thus maintaining reliability while limiting complexity growth
Data Source
AI summary
A method for controlling one or more scent delivery units includes maintaining one or more scheduled events, maintaining one or more scheduled anti-events, and generating, based on the one or more scheduled events and the one or more scheduled anti-events, command data to be communicated to the one or more scent delivery units to control their activation and deactivation. Generating the command data includes identifying a conflicting period of time during which control specified by the one or more scheduled events differs from control specified by the one or more scheduled anti-events and also includes generating command data that gives priority to control specified by the one or more scheduled anti-events. Control for the one or more scent delivery units during the conflicting period of time is in accordance with control logic of the one or more scheduled anti-events and not the one or more scheduled events.