Sleep Right, Sleep Tight: A Pneumatic Pillow with Active Adjustment

For those who want a more comfortable night’s sleep, a pillow cushion with active support modulation can be beneficial in providing proper posture support throughout the night regardless of the position of sleep. The market currently lacks a reactive head and neck support which ensures proper neck and spine alignment during rest. Our proposed design solution is a pillow system consisting of a head and neck support unit and a control unit. The head and neck support unit is the part of our system that a person can comfortably lay their head on during rest. Specifically, the support unit consists of separate head and neck air chambers that react to the pressure change detected as a person lays their head down to continuously maintain neutral head alignment. Neutral head alignment in our design is defined as the position of the head relative to the neck when standing straight. The control unit of our system houses the majority of the electronic and mechanical components of the pillow system, acting as the “brain” of the entire to provide power to the system and control to the air chambers. Our current design is a proof of concept that demonstrates the active adjustment of the head and neck chambers as a person changes position during rest. As the user changes position, the support provided by the airbags should be such that the neck and spine align in a way similar to that observed when the user stands in an upright posture