Hi everyone
we are a research team from Zhejiang University
Today we will present our Late-Breaking-Work titled PneuMat
Pneumatic Interaction System for Infant Sleep Safety Using Shape-Changing Interfaces
We propose the PneuMat
an interactive shape-changing system integrating sensors
and pneumatic drives
to help ensure infants’ sleep safety through novel human-computer interaction
To understand this issue better
we first look at the report for the Early Child Care Research Network
There are about 3,500 sleep-related deaths among US infants each year
One study found that 2 out of 15 reported infant deaths
involved infants having been placed in a prone position
and 13 (87%) had rolled into a prone position
from either the supine or side position
And studies have found that a side sleeping position is unstable
and increases the chance that infants will roll onto their stomachs
the sleep position associated with the highest risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
Thus, it is important to keep the infant in a safe position during sleep
Next, I'll describe how PneuMat works for a few usage scenarios
After being fed
infants are usually placed on mat to rest
Before the infant is placed on the mat
the PneuMat runs an inflation procedure in advance
so that the infant is placed on an inclined plane
and this position will be maintained for 15 minutes
according to the doctor's clinical advice
This process is to prevent the infant from choking on milk
A temperature sensor and a pressure sensor are placed on the inflatable unit
that the infant will come into contact with when lying on his side
If the infant’s position is not correct
The inflatable units on the opposite side
will inflate tidally to adjust the infant’s sleeping position
So how can PneuMat autonomously adjust the infant’s position?
The PneuMat is composed of four main parts
(a) nine groups of inflatable units connected by tubes
so that the infant can be placed on the inflatable units
(b) a control unit
(c) a group of integrated analog digital signal sensor units
(d) the computer works remotely for real-time data acquisition and processing
Then the control units can be attached to the side of the PneuMat via tubes
The system has integrated sensors and inflatable units
The pressure sensor,temperature sensor and ultrasonic sensor read the pressure
temperature and distance between the infant and the mat respectively
And liquid sensor is used to detect whether infant sudden onset acute
and severe choking milk
All sensors provide sensory input to the system
so that the PneuMat can autonomously adjust a dangerous sleeping posture
by shape-changing
The PneuMat is divided into nine specific areas
Division of the PneuMat based on the infant’s body structure
to achieve the purpose of more precise adjustment of the infant’s sleeping position
and a better interactive experience
①Currently, to use the PneuMat
infants would be in a state of pre-sleep or sleep generally
but the pneumatic drivers of the interactive system
will produce some decibels of noise
which may disturb sleep
To address this problem
we plan to have the pneumatic drivers
fixed in a box made of sound-absorbing material
②The weight of the baby doll used in the experiment is much lower than that of a newborn
In addition
the doll was static and remained passive throughout the test
The detection effect of the system on posture changes is uncertain to real newborns
So It would be beneficial to collaborate and work together
with various stakeholders such as physicians and infants' parents to design
improve and evaluate PneuMat in practice
So with that
we think every family with newborns in the future
should be equipped with something like PneuMat to help ensure infants’ sleep safety
For any questions feel free to ask me in following session
or reach out to me by email
and for technical detail and result
you can read our paper
I’m exciting to hear all your question and suggestion
That’s all
Thank you