First they invaded our factories, and now it’s our hotel rooms. Is nowhere safe from the robots? In truth, Ibis’ upcoming Sleep Art project is very slick, even if it smacks of robot voyeurism.

Engadget (read article)

About

An art algorithm, a sensor-packed mattress, an industrial robot and a bunch of brushes and paint turns your night of sleep into a piece of art.

Each night, a selected applicant gets to create their own art piece simply by sleeping. A special mattress was created to sense pressure, heat and sound. The data from the mattress is fed into a software running an art algorithm that in turn control a robot to paint with traditional colors on a canvas.

Technology

The custom made mattress was created using pressure, temperature and sound sensors all fed into a box designed to control the robot (an ABB IRB-120). The box interpreted the signals to make decisions in terms of colours, strokes and positions.

Markus Wård holding the IRB-120 robot controller in ABB Paris lab

Countless simulations had to be run to define a framework in which to create art. Once we moved toward using the actual robot, brushes and paint we also had to mix colors specifically to match our use case in terms of viscosity etc.

Credits: Acne, BETC Paris, IBIS Hotels