Development of an intelligent pillow with multiple flexible actuators
This study aims to develop an intelligent bedding that automatically provides a comfortable sleep condition for each person. This paper proposes a pillow-type device which actively changes its shape and stiffness. The device is composed of multiple flexib
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Department of Mechanical and Control Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan *1 [email protected] 2 Polytech Paris UPMC, School of Engineering, Paris, France 3 Fujibedkogyo Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan
Abstract— This study aims to develop an intelligent bedding that automatically provides a comfortable sleep condition for each person. This paper proposes a pillow-type device which actively changes its shape and stiffness. The device is composed of multiple flexible actuators which are driven by air pressure. Each actuator has two types of sensors: an internal pressure sensor and five contact pressure sensors. These sensors are used for monitoring the support condition of user’s head and neck. We developed a pillow system capable of controlling the internal pressure and contact pressure of each actuator in order to realize a comfortable condition for sleep. The pillow system successfully controlled the center of contact pressure to the target position. To elucidate comfortable and uncomfortable support conditions, pressure distributions on the head and neck were measured by the system. The result indicates that accurate control of the center of contact pressure is important for comfortableness. Keywords—sleep; comfortable; intelligent bedding system; flexible actuator; feedback control; pressure; posture
I. INTRODUCTION Comfortable bedding, especially pillow, is important for health and quality of life. There is a lot of possible factors to provide comfortable pillows. Many researchers tried to evaluate comfortableness of pillows with those factors such as stiffness [1][2], shape [3][4][5][6][7] and thermal properties [8]. Some researchers reported development of an active air mattresses for controlling thermal condition of bedding [9] or preventing bedsore of a patient [10] [11] by pressurizing or depressurizing air bags with predetermined routine. However, those mattresses do not have an active function to transform their shape to provide an appropriate posture for each user. In addition, there are a few discussions of such beddings for healthy people. We expect the contact pressure acting on the head and neck area and the sleep posture are important factors for comfortableness of a pillow because they are related to biomechanical conditions of users.
This study aims to develop an intelligent bedding system that automatically provides a comfortable position and pressure distribution. This paper discusses about a new pillow device as a part of the intelligent bedding system. Although there is a report about a pillow device [12], it focuses to maintain breathing easy during sleep and the viewpoint is different from our purpose. This paper describes the pillow device and comfortable support condition.
II.
THE INTELLIGENT PILLOW DEVICE
A. Overview Figure 1 shows the intelligent pillow system. This system is composed of a transformable pillow, control unit, air valves and air compressor. The details of the parts are described below. B. Transformable pillow Figure 2 shows a transformable
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