Medical Robotic Bed to Prevent Pressure Sores

Patients who stay in bed for long periods are prone to pressure sores. Pressure sores cause multiple complications and prolong hospitalization. To prevent pressure sores, the patient’s lying position must be changed continuously so that excessive pressure on any body part does not last long. In this paper, we propose a novel robotic bed to prevent the formation of pressure sores. This robotic bed is composed of multiple segments that are driven independently by brushless direct current motors and that use body pressure information for feedback control. By controlling the movement of the segments on the top of the bed with a fuzzy controller, the patient’s body pressure is kept below the reference value. Moreover, a belt-type body pressure sensor is developed herein by using force-sensing resistor technology to measure the patient’s body pressure. A bed control system composed of the main controller, a teach pendant, motor controllers, and sensors was implemented. Through real experiments, the validity of the proposed robot bed was verified, and it was confirmed that the fuzzy closed-loop controller followed the reference body pressure commands well.