Abstract
Traveling is an integral part of our lifestyle. Irrespective of the situation or requirement, one cannot totally avoid traveling. People often sit for long hours in seats with limited legroom during travel. These seats often don’t provide the luxury of a comfortable posture. Sitting in an uncomfortable posture repeatedly or for a long duration will strain the muscles and result in serious internal injuries. Collar area, being the most sensitive, is prone to maximum injuries; a slight jerk is sufficient to bring muscular strain. Head is the only body part having maximum degree of motion. Continuous uncontrolled motion while traveling stresses out the neck muscles. Good neck support can prevent injuries and muscle strain. For neck support, a wide range of travel pillows are available in the market, most popular ones being the U-shaped pillows. But even this fail to provide the 360 degrees support. This paper records the case study of creating a portable product that provides neck support in both sitting and lying down positions specifically during traveling. The product design is targeted for physically healthy users, having no cervical or orthopedic disorder. Also, the design process is aimed at creating a neck support product to avoid muscular stress and injury while traveling and not for enhancing the general sleep quality.
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Author acknowledges Indian Institute of Science—Bangalore, for providing infrastructure and resources required for conducting this study.
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Chandra, A., Thulkar, A., Kailas, S.V. (2023). Design of Travel Pillow. In: Chakrabarti, A., Singh, V. (eds) Design in the Era of Industry 4.0, Volume 2. ICORD 2023. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 342. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0264-4_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0264-4_4
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