SBIR Phase I: Advanced in-home technologies for infant thermoneutrality

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响是提高婴儿的福祉和他们的照顾者和/或父母的生活质量。每周，全球有超过250万名“阿尔法一代”的成员出生，他们的父母期望并需要技术驱动的反馈和支持。目前，这在睡眠时间的服装选择领域还没有，因此这些基于“艺术”的决定的模糊负担严重影响了新父母的思想。医学机构警告说，婴儿的体温调节能力有限，过热与婴儿猝死综合症（SIDS）之间存在联系。穿得太少也有问题，可能导致严重的婴儿体温过低。照顾者被告知，他们必须给婴儿穿最佳的衣服，因为给婴儿穿衣服过多或过少都会导致严重的问题，但他们没有任何技术来做到这一点。我们将开发一个先进的技术系统，以科学地指导和量化正确的睡眠时间选择，为安全，再生和发育生长提供最佳条件，同时减轻照顾者的怀疑负担。独特的是，我们将把先进的技术与一个引人入胜的教育平台结合起来，提供一个极具影响力的产品，旨在立即占领快速增长的230亿美元的美国婴儿护理行业的相当大的一部分。拟议的项目将开发先进的技术，能够确定婴儿睡衣和睡袋的热阻，并根据测量的睡眠环境条件评估适用性。开发的技术将部署在消费者层面，在家里。目前用于测量织物热阻的技术是极其昂贵、耗时且基于实验室的。快速和稳健地接近这种技术用于家庭和便携式部署是极其复杂的。研究目标包括探索和开发各种新颖的方法来表征织物的物理特性，因为它们与热阻有关，使用互补的基于传感器的套件来创建新技术，并创建强大的多方面算法，协同联合收割机输入并得出确定性结论。将对结果进行比较分析，并通过图形界面为用户提供指导，以帮助他们做出选择，该界面还提供其他最先进的睡眠时间教育信息，重申最佳实践，就在最需要的地方，在睡觉的时候该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I Project is to enhance the well-being of babies and the quality of life of their caregivers and/or parents. Each week more than 2.5 million members of "Generation Alpha" are born globally to parents who expect and require technology driven feedback and support. Currently, this is not available in the area of sleep-time clothing choices, and so the ambiguous burden of these "art"-based decisions bears heavily on the minds of new parents. Medical bodies warn about limited capacity for infants to thermoregulate and the link between overheating and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Under-dressing is also problematic and can result in serious infant hypothermia. Caregivers are educated that they must dress babies optimally, as over or under-dressing babies can lead to significant problems, but they are not armed with any technologies to do so. We will develop a system of advanced technologies to scientifically guide and quantify the right sleep-time choices, leading to optimal conditions for safe, regenerative and developmental growth, while alleviating the burden of doubt from the caregiver. Uniquely, we will couple advanced technologies with an engaging education platform to deliver a highly impactful product, designed to immediately capture a sizable portion of the rapidly growing $23 billion USA baby care industry.The proposed project will develop advanced technologies capable of determining the thermal resistance of baby sleep clothes and sleep-sacks, and evaluating suitability with respect to the measured conditions of the sleep environment. Developed technologies will be deployed at the consumer level, in-home. Current technologies for measuring the thermal resistance of fabrics are prohibitively expensive, time consuming and laboratory based. Rapidly and robustly approximating to this technology for in-home and portable deployment is extremely complex. Research objectives include exploring and developing a variety of novel ways to characterize the physical properties of fabrics as they relate to thermal resistance, using complementary sensor-based suites to create new technologies, and creating powerful multifaceted algorithms that synergistically combine inputs and make deterministic conclusions. Results will be comparatively analyzed and the user will be provided with guidance to assist their choices through a graphical interface that also provides other state-of-the-art sleep-time education information, reaffirming best practices, right where they are vitally needed, at the point of sleep-time.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.