TECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Furniture Airbags
An inside glimpse at what's new in emerging technologies
 A collision without airbags: The test subject, wearing a helmet to prevent head injury, collides with the floor after the chair has tipped over. |
It happens every day. Someone sitting in a chair leans too far backwards. The chair tips over. Severe head injury results.
The traditional method of protection is to wear a safety helmet. However, this has always met with high consumer resistance. Thus was born the furniture airbag. The airbag technology was originally developed to protect automobile drivers in the event of a collision. Protective airbags are now being developed for chairs, couches and other domestic furnishings.
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A collision with airbags: The rapidly inflated airbags protect the test subject, preventing head injury despite the fact that is not wearing a helmet. |
The chair/bag combination must guard against injuries that would happen if a person were to roll sideways after having tipped over backwards. This eventuality is not a major concern in the case of couches, of course, but it is a common problem with most chairs.
One airbag per chair, it turns out, is not enough. At least two are needed to prevent the chair from rolling over. A three bag design is sufficient to preventing rolling, but may be economically undesirable -- it raises the manufacturing cost far beyond current levels. Experiments with two large, softly inflated bags have been promising.
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