ENP162 group project with Sara and Milan
Problem Statement and Design Goals
The goal of the Automated Bed Engineer (ABE), is to automate the process of making a bed.
Bed making is a task that almost everyone participates in on a daily basis, and takes anywhere from 2 to 10 minutes to complete each day. That means that over the course of a year, making your bed could take up to 60 hours. Additionally, bed-making can be done with varying levels of precision and completeness. Some people have lots of throw blankets and pillows that they have to arrange precisely each morning, as well as extra layers of sheets for warmth. These items can be annoying and time consuming to arrange and tidy each morning, leading the messy or half made beds. Especially in urban areas, beds may be placed against walls or in awkward spaces due to size constraints. This can create problems when trying to make the bed each morning. Lastly, for some elderly or handicapped people, making their bed each morning presents a massive physical and emotional struggle. The frustration of not being able to create this seemingly simple task could be eliminated with the Automated Bed Engineer.
Users
Sam is a 22 year-old graduate student who lives in an apartment with his parents in New York City. He is training for a marathon and also works at a local hardware store to earn some extra money. Sam has recently found himself being chronically late for class and work shifts, and is struggling to find enough time to squeeze in his marathon training runs. To save time he’s has stopped making his bed, which drives his mom absolutely crazy. Sam maintains that he doesn’t have the time to carefully make his bed this morning, and Sam’s mom insists that while he lives under her roof his bed will be made. ABE can solve this problem. With the implementation of the Automated Bed Engineer, Sam won’t have to waste time making his bed each morning, and Sam’s mom will get the enjoyment of seeing Sam’s bed made neatly each morning.
Linda is an 88 year old window from New Jersey. She lives independently in a 3 bedroom condo, but has bad arthritis in her hands and struggles to complete tasks that require fine motor control. Most recently she’s been having a hard time creating tight hospital corners when making her bed and struggles to lift the mattress to tuck the sheets under. Additionally, folding the quilt that she uses for extra warmth has become a very time consuming and pain inducing task. Linda is frustrated by how messy her bed always looks because she can no longer manipulate the bulky comforter and hefty mattress. ABE can solve all of these problems. With the implementation of the Automated Bed Engineer, Linda will no longer need to struggle to make her bed. Not only will she save time, but it will also prevent her from aggravating her arthritis and solve the problem of the messy looking bed.
Market Research
Some bed making technologies are currently available on the market. One example, is the Smartduvet, which uses air pockets that inflate and deflate to manipulate the placement of your comforter and sheets. This system is noisy, as it requires a pump, and requires an additional insert into your bedding. Another system requires installing a track on either side of your bed, and then attaching the top corners of your comforter to each side of the track. Then in the morning, the motors on each track simply pull your comforter back to the top of your bed. ABE will be a humanoid robot solution, which will eliminate the noise concerns, and not require the installation of any additional hardware to the users existing bed or bedding. Additionally, ABE will be able to automate the process of repositioning pillows and throw-blankets, which no existing system can currently handle.
Task Analysis
Color Key:
Orange: Info/Analysis
Blue: Decision
Purple: Action
Scope: The machine is to automate the process of making your bed on a day to day basis. This machine is not designed to change sheets, wash sheets, or make a bed for the first time. Rather, the goal is to eliminate the need for people to waste time each day making their bed.
Features and User interface
ABE comes in different colors to fit every household. Silver is the default color, but you can also get ABE in brown, blue, and yellow colors.
Fig 1. Available colors
ABE has a display on its back that can be accessed by sliding a cover. The display is used to change settings like how long to wait before starting to make the bed (default is 10 minutes), add/ remove users to send messages to, hours to ignore the bed (default from 2 PM to 4 PM when kids are playing in the room and are running in and out). The 10 inch display has a capacitive touch screen.
Fig 2: User interface ABE
ABE has some human aspect to it. It has three main parts: head, torso and base. On its head it has has a face with eyes to indicate if it is awake or sleeping: open and blinking eyelids means awake and preparing to make bed or active, closed eyes means sleeping and awaiting instruction from Bed Control. Face also have two cameras behind eye position that give ABE its stereoscopic view. On top of head is a 9 square inches button for emergency stopping. Once stopped it goes back to its resting position and wait for next bed making instruction from Smart Bedsheet.
Fig 3: Head of ABE with animated eyes, camera and STOP button
ABE moves on four omni wheels that gives it mobility and stability. The torso is connected to the base with a rotating shaft that allows 360 degree free motion to its torso. Torso has four foldable arms with grippers on each end. Each arm has four joints that allows it do complex movements.
Fig 4: Base of ABE
The Smart Bedsheet is an integral part of ABE. It is system of thin sheet laced with force sensors and is placed under the mattress and a circuit to analyze the signal and communicate with ABE.
Tackling Trust Issues
Bedroom is a private space and a robot with camera in its face may alarm people who are concerned with privacy. However, there is no need to worry with Automated Bed Engineer. ABE is trustworthy. The images captured to determine the situation of bed and maneuver the robot are not stored. And since ABE is not connected to the internet there is no way for remote unauthorized access into the camera or memory. All the image processing algorithm are hardwired into the main board and doesn’t need external storage devices to store images. All the images, sounds and weight information used for analysis are immediately removed from the internal memory of ABE after a decision is made. For communication, ABE has a GSM module that allows communication to and from the user via mobile phone.
Fig 5: ABE is not connected to internet. It communicates with Smart Bedsheet via bluetooth and with users phone via GSM module
By making ABE a standalone automatic system and not connecting it to the internet we have eliminated issues of privacy like photos, sleep pattern, bodyweight, number of people sleeping etc.
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