Rachel van Sluijs and Elisabeth Wilhelm in the surveillance room. The cup of coffee is important for their night shifts. (ETH Zurich / Stefan Schneller)
During the three nights, they are under the watchful eyes of van Sluijs, Rondei and Wilhelm. As an engineer, Wilhelm is responsible for the technical aspects. She has a lot of experience from other projects. The best-known one uses the Somnomat as an anti-snoring bed, a project that is already close to becoming a product. There, however, they use a mechanical system which is already commercially available. In the current study, the bed is much more a prototype. The moving parts, which are built at ETH, are fully exposed. Dangerous in a study with children. This is why there are mats around the bed that immediately trigger an emergency stop as soon as a child gets out of bed and might touch the mechanics or a parent goes to the bed.
According to Wilhelm, the technical challenge is to make the system as quiet as possible so that it does not interfere with sleep. The bed can swing at different speeds either sideways or in the direction of the sleeping person, depending on the participants’ wishes.
