Robotic bear pillow tickles sleepers to stop snoring
Baku, November 18 (AZERTAC). This week saw the 19th International Robot Exhibition (IREX) held at Tokyo Big Sight displaying the world’s most advanced, innovative and sometimes plain bizarre robots. Over 270 different companies and organizations joined this year’s theme of “Robot Technology, Making a Future with Robot”. Amongst the technologies on show were singing robots, climbing robots, industrial robots and even a robotic bear like pillow called Jukusui-Kun aimed at stopping snoring.
Jukusui-Kun is a polar bear-shaped robotic pillow that, like Paro the seal-bot, masks a serious purpose beneath its cute and cuddly exterior. Jukusui-Kun is designed to help snorers and those who live with them - whenever snoring becomes too loud (and sleep apnea becomes a danger), the robot raises its paw and gently touches the sleeper’s face to trigger a change of sleeping position. Jukusui-Kun is arguably the first and only anti-snoring robot.
As well as being quite irritating for family members, snoring might be a sign of sleep apnea. These dangerous pauses in breathing during sleep effect an estimated 2 million people in Japan alone - and it cannot be underestimated.
Basically, sleep apnea is associated with blood oxygen saturation. Therefore, the pillow bear works with a pulse-oxygen meter attached to sleeper’s hand (in the form of a baby polar bear), which tracks the amount of oxygen in the blood. It’s wirelessly connected to a terminal that analyzes the data and remotely controls the bear. There’s also a microphone hidden inside the pillow which measures the level of noise caused by snoring.
When the oxygen level drops and noise increases at the same time, Jukusui-Kun slowly and gently raises its paw to brush the patient’s face, thus causing a change of position without waking. This change in sleeping position from the back to the side encourages a snoreless night.
Jukusui-Kun, which means “deep sleep” in Japanese, was developed by researchers from Tokyo’s Waseda University. There are no plans to introduce a commercial version at this stage.
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