Title : - Development of a Microcontroller based Technology of a

pressure sensitive bed for immovable patients to reduce

the risk of bed sore
Sanctioned by: - Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi
P.I.:- P.S.Rathore
C.I.:- Mrs. Aparajita Pandey
Amount Sanctioned :-Rs.9,65,941/-

Aim & Objectives:

The objective of this project is to design and develop a bed in which surface pressure of different parts will change
automatically after a predetermined time. This is done by inflation and deflation action at different pressure by air supply unit
(Compressor/Vacuum pumps) whose motors are controlled through a programmable microcontroller. The segment or cell wise pressure change
through microcontrollers is an innovative technology which is proposed to be developed in this project.
The main objectives of the project are:
a) Simulation study of the pressure exerted on a bed by the immobile patient.
b) To design a matrixed or celled bed.
c) To select proper materials and fabricate the bed.
d) To design a proper mechanism to inflate and deflate each compartment/cell.
e) To systematically inflate and deflate each compartment/cell and study its effect in terms of pressure.
f) To design a controller & its program to control the inflation and deflation operation.

Methodology:
The development process is logically planned in following steps:
a) Designing and fabrication of pneumatic controlled compartmental bed
b) Designing and fabrication of controller to inflate and deflate compartments as per
predetermined programme.
c) Pressure mapping to assess the effectiveness of the bed.
d) Prototype system evaluation.
e) Design refinement and optimization.

Outcome:

In this project efforts have been made to develop an innovative technology to design a bed useful in curing or reducing the

impact of painful disease of bedsores. This has been done with varying pressure at different positions at bed after a predetermined time through
microcontroller and associated pressure control mechanism. The existing technologies have only unidirectional pressure variation. In this project,
two dimensional pressure variation design has been developed with alternate inflate-deflate pattern. This design provides more flexibility to have
high or low pressure points at desired locations. The results are encouraging as overall pressure reduction is observed as composite effect of
simultaneous inflation-deflation operation.
There were some manufacturing problems observed while creating cell compartments through applying adhesives on rubber sheet joints in the
prototype bed. This resulted in air leakage when pressure was increased. The problem can easily be solved in bulk manufacturing with
fabrication of bed with proper die casting.
There is scope of developing a better design with more pressure variation points, the task could be taken up as a next development stage in the
future project.
In nutshell, a process for development of a useful technology has been initiated in this project using the Electro-Mechanical & Microcontroller
concepts to solve a medical problem related to the occurrence of bed sore.

Figure A: Air flow system

Photographs of the development and testing process of prototype bed

Photo 1 : Cell Compartment Marking on sheet during bed fabrication process

Photo 2 : Cell inflation-deflation testing process

Photo 3 : Cell inflation-deflation testing process

Photo 4: Microcontroller based control circuit test set-up

Photo 5 : Time Programming Testing of inflation-deflation process through Controller

Photo 6: Microcontroller based Control System along with air valves

Photo 7 : Pressure measuring Instrument used in the project

Photo 8 : Research Scholar programming the microcontroller

Photo 9: Research Scholar testing the simulated bed with pillows

Photo 10: Research Scholar Testing the pressure in the simulated bed with pillows

Photo 11 : Testing of the Inflation-Deflation Process in the simulated bed with pillows