Abstract
Accidental Suffocation and Strangulation in Bed (ASSB), often caused by unsafe sleep positions such as prone sleeping, remains a leading cause of preventable infant death. While conventional baby monitors provide alerts, they cannot intervene pro actively. This paper introduces FloMat, an intelligent infant sleep safety system designed to autonomously correct dangerous sleep positions without disturbing the infant. The system integrates visual monitoring to detect mouth-nose occlusion and uses low-boiling-point liquid-to-gas phase- change actuators to reposition the infant without generating audible noise. A multilayer structure ensures effective intervention, thermal comfort, and adaptability across differing infant body weights. Experiments using simulated infant models (4–6.4 kg) demonstrate high correction success rates within a safe time window and minimal noise generation. FloMat redefines infant care by shifting from passive alert systems to proactive intervention. It exemplifies a human-centered approach that merges engineering innovation with caregiving needs. Beyond home use, the system shows promise for deployment in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), offering a quiet, safe, and responsive solution for ASSB prevention. This work contributes to the transformation of healthcare design by proposing a new paradigm for infant sleep monitoring and safety.
Keywords
Infant sleep safety; Active intervention; Gas-liquid phase-change actuated system
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.294
Citation
Fu, R., Chen, J., Tian, Z., Wei, J.,and Liu, J.(2025) FloMat: A Silent Gas-Liquid Phase-Change Mechanism for Ensuring Infant Sleep Safety, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.294
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 9 - Healthcare Design
FloMat: A Silent Gas-Liquid Phase-Change Mechanism for Ensuring Infant Sleep Safety
Accidental Suffocation and Strangulation in Bed (ASSB), often caused by unsafe sleep positions such as prone sleeping, remains a leading cause of preventable infant death. While conventional baby monitors provide alerts, they cannot intervene pro actively. This paper introduces FloMat, an intelligent infant sleep safety system designed to autonomously correct dangerous sleep positions without disturbing the infant. The system integrates visual monitoring to detect mouth-nose occlusion and uses low-boiling-point liquid-to-gas phase- change actuators to reposition the infant without generating audible noise. A multilayer structure ensures effective intervention, thermal comfort, and adaptability across differing infant body weights. Experiments using simulated infant models (4–6.4 kg) demonstrate high correction success rates within a safe time window and minimal noise generation. FloMat redefines infant care by shifting from passive alert systems to proactive intervention. It exemplifies a human-centered approach that merges engineering innovation with caregiving needs. Beyond home use, the system shows promise for deployment in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), offering a quiet, safe, and responsive solution for ASSB prevention. This work contributes to the transformation of healthcare design by proposing a new paradigm for infant sleep monitoring and safety.