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

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.