Picture a bed of nails, densely packed. Now blunt the ends of the nails and add atop each nail a 10 centimeter-long dense cushion. Make each cushion wide enough to touch the one beside it. Surround this mechanism with a wooden frame such that the cushions cannot be pressed outward. Under each nail add a simple, robust, independent lifting mechanism capable of pushing it upward by about 15 centimeters. Under each lift add a powering mechanism controlled by a central computer.

Got all that? Okay. Now use automated line tracing to teach the computer where your hips, shoulders, arms, feet, chest, and head are. Use the program thus created to move the cushions such that no matter how you turn or move the pins in the bed will automatically adjust to keep your spine perfectly straight but make room for your arms, hips, and whatever else juts out of your body.
-- Voice, Feb 05 2020

Mr. Yashida. https://www.youtube...watch?v=rfakKEP2oKw
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 05 2020]

Is 15cm enough?
-- pocmloc, Feb 05 2020


//too many parts//

I never said it's practical...
-- Voice, Feb 05 2020


This was done in a movie. Um... some super hero thing, uh... give me a sec.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 05 2020


Ah yes, [link]
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 05 2020


Could a stretchy foam material join the top of 10cm cushions so less actuators are needed. This overlay fabric would try to form the best fair surface between actuation heights. Allowing the 10cm cushions to have space and to bend vertically may help this.

Really just a normal mattress open at the bottom so springs can be vertically actuated 15cm.

We can do wires pretty well so a magnetic nail in a cylinder with a number of coils could do the articulation. Sheilding would be a must and the number would have to increase by a few magnitudes due to limited force generated.
-- wjt, Feb 06 2020



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