Aeolus

What it does

Introducing Aeolus, an AI-powered pillow for your better sleep. Our pillow can be customized to suit the user's neck and head position, providing quality sleep over the night. Our AI-based application can connect to the pillow to analyze your sleep behavior.

Your inspiration

17% of the world’s population suffers from insomnia due to the pillow. Lack of quality sleep leads to more serious health problems such as chronic cardiovascular and other diseases. To have a quality sleep, each body needs a pillow with different size and shape. However, pillows in the market are rarely customizable to suit different bodies. As a result, we present Aeolus, a customizable, personalized pillow that can be adjusted to suit every body, for better sleep quality and be more comfortable.

How it works

During sleep, Aeolus collects pressure signals from the pressure mapping system embedded in the pillow periodically. The collected data is transferred to the AI-embedded application to analyze sleeping postures and sleep quality. To customize the pillow, the user can find a sleeping report in the application, and select a proper customization for the pillow. The user can connect the air control system, which includes the air pump and a processing unit, to the pillow and activate the pillow customization feature from the application. The microcontroller inside the air control system will monitor the pumping process, independently adjusting the height of each air cushion block in the pillow until the height reaches the suggested value.

Design process

Our design process began with researching the causes of insomnia due to inappropriate pillows. We found that many pillows in the market don’t take sleep quality into the design. Some pillows are designed for anti-snoring, but still don’t provide a proper support for high quality sleep. We found that the height of neck and head supports are crucial for a good pillow, and need to be customizable for each individual. Thus, we designed a 7-segment, customizable air cushion pillow. We compared and contrasted designs with different numbers of air cushion segments, and found that 7 segments are optimal for Aeolus. 7 segments consist of 1 long air cushion at the very top of Aeolus, 3 segments in the middle row, and 3 segments in the lower row. The top segment supports the height of the head, and the middle and lower row support the weight and adjust the height of the head and neck, and also control the neck position. For the height adjusting mechanism, we chose air cushion over mechanical supporting system or other mechanism due to its flexibility and comfort. Air cushion is also safe from impacts due to movement during sleep. We also designed separated supporting systems (the air control system and the application) to enhance the capabilities of Aeolus, and make it easily carryable.

How it is different

The key feature of Aeolus is a personalized pillow for better sleep quality. We research many pillows in the market, and focus on 3 types of pillows: a standard pillow, an anti-snoring pillow, and a memory foam pillow. The standard pillow cannot adjust nor improve sleep quality. The user cannot track any sleeping profile. Aeolus can provide both. It can personalize the sleeping posture and also monitor sleep quality through the combination of sensors and its AI-powered application. Anti-snoring pillow provides head and neck support for anti-snoring purposes, but doesn’t guarantee good sleep quality in general. Aeolus provides the sleep profile tracking and its personalized, adjustable height for better sleep quality. Memory foam pillow, while providing comfort, lacks capability to provide a personalized pillow customization. Aeolus aims to use memory foam over our air cushion mechanism to maximize comfort and sleep quality.

Future plans

We plan to prototype Aeolus and improve its designs in various aspects such as size variations and different pillow types for different usages. The number of air cushions can also be researched to find a better design for better sleep quality. In terms of functionalities, we plan to add the auto-adjusting function during sleep into the pillow so Aeolus can customize itself during the sleep to provide the best sleep experience.

Awards