Bed apparatus
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Solution Overview
Problem
Bed apparatuses with height-adjustable mechanisms often experience deviations between intended and actual height changes due to errors in drive units, leading to tilting issues when multiple units operate, especially in nursing beds where compactness and ease of assembly are crucial.
Innovation Solution
A bed apparatus with two drivers linked through a calculating means, error detecting means, and error correcting means to calculate and correct deviations in height settings, ensuring accurate alignment and levelness by detecting and adjusting errors in head-side and foot-side lift units.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple drive units are used to adjust bed height at head and foot sides, then the bed can tilt to reduce user burden, but errors in drive units cause the bed to tilt incorrectly even when flat positioning is desired
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements feedback control by detecting the actual positions of the head-side and foot-side lift units, calculating height errors compared to target positions, and correcting these errors by adjusting the drive units. This closed-loop feedback system ensures that the bed achieves and maintains the desired flat or tilted position despite drive unit errors
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces pure mechanical positioning with an integrated control system that uses sensors, calculators, and actuators to detect, compute, and correct height deviations. This substitution of mechanical systems with intelligent control mechanisms enables precise bed positioning and error correction
2Reliability
If drive units operate with cumulative errors, then small individual errors become significant over multiple operations, but adding correction mechanisms increases system complexity
Solution Approach 1:
The feedback mechanism continuously monitors the actual height of each lift unit and compares it with the target height, calculating errors and implementing corrections. This automated feedback loop maintains positioning reliability without requiring complex manual intervention systems
Solution Approach 2:
The error correction system operates autonomously by automatically detecting height deviations, calculating the required corrections, and adjusting the drive units without external intervention. This self-service capability maintains reliability while minimizing the complexity of external control systems
Data Source
AI summary
A bed apparatus including, at least, two drivers or a first driver and a second driver, the first driver being in linkage with the second driver, comprises: a calculating means for calculating a calculated bed state value, based on the first driver and the second driver; an error detecting means for detecting error between the calculated bed state value and a designated bed state value designated by the user; and, an error correcting means for correcting the detected error when an error is detected by the error detecting means. As a result, it is possible to provide a bed apparatus that can coincide the designated state of the bed apparatus with the actual state of the bed apparatus by appropriately correcting the error between the drivers.