The human body needs sleep as much as it needs food and water. Yet many people fail to get enough, causing both mind and body to suffer. People who struggle for shut-eye could benefit from monitoring their sleep, but they have limited options for doing so.
In a new study in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, one team describes a potential solution: a self-powering smart pillow that tracks the position of the head.
To construct the smart pillow, the researchers Ding Li, Zhong Lin Wang and their colleagues formulated a flexible, porous polymer triboelectric layer. Movement between the head and this layer changes the electric field around nearby electrodes, generating a current. They strung together several of these self-powering sensors to create a flexible and breathable TENG (FB-TENG) array that can be placed atop an ordinary pillow.
This smart pillow could have uses beyond tracking sleep, the researchers say. For example, the system could monitor patients with diseases that affect the movement of the head, such as the degenerative neck disorder cervical spondylosis. What’s more, the smart pillow could be adapted to offer an early warning system for those at risk of falling out of bed, they say.
Studies have linked chronic lack of sleep to physical ailments, such as diabetes and heart disease, as well as mental health issues.
