Study On The Relation Between Pressure And Comfort Of Functional Pillow

As the most closed contact with our body when sleeping, pillow has a profound result on the quality of sleeping. Nomal pillow is made by traditional fabric, pillow-core and single type, it doesn't fit well with our head and neck curve, thus affecting our sleeping and health. Therefore , the development of functional pillow has an important significance of life, and the relation between pressure and comfort of pillow is an extremely important part of the systematic study on the functional pillow.Based on the anylysis of the development of pressure comfort of pillow and the way of traditional pressure measurement on pillow, the testing system of measuring pillow pressure by using the Flexiforce force sensor is self-developed. The testing system controlled by TMS320F2812 DSP mainly includes Flexiforce force sensor, amplifier, analog-to-digital converter, DSP and serial communication Interface. And software design is based on DSP chip order and C language. The testing system realizes the data acquisition in multi-channel at one time, the data record and preservation and the real-time display, which is suitable for pressure comfort of pillow, and simple for operating and has an excellent performance.This paper based on self-designed experimental pillows which fit with human's head and neck curve proceed the subjective and objective assessing experiments to study the relation between pressure and comfort of pillow. In the subjective assessing experiment, we have analyzed the relation of the comfort and different subjective feeling of pillow by amount estimate method. And in the objective testing experiment used the Flexiforce pressure testing system, we have gotten the pressure value of different testing parts when lying on back and side, and the comfort range of pillow pressure by anylizing the relation between pillow pressure and comfort.By the method of combing the subjective and objective testing for evaluation the pillow pressure comfort or no, we establish a scientific and perfection evaluation standard. The results obtained are as follows: The comfort range of the pillow pressure is 0.555～0.687N for lying on back , 0.387～0.432N for lying on side,while the discomfort range of pressure is over 0.79N for lying on back, over 0.5N for lying on side. And the pressure of comfort pillow of lying on back is smaller than that of lying on side.