A Low Cost IoT Based Neonatal Incubator for Resource Poor Settings
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Date
2020-07-31
Authors
Nwaneri, S.
Sojobi, J.W.
Oyelade, A.O.
Ezenwa, B.N.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Faculty of Engineering, The University of the West Indies St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies.
Abstract
Preterm births in resource poor countries are characterised by high infant mortality. The high cost and non availability of conventional neonatal incubators are considered to significantly affect efforts aimed at mitigating this problem. In this paper, a low-cost Internet of Things (IoT) based neonatal incubator with phototherapy blanket ispresented. The device was constructed using a wooden box with a dimension of 33 × 20 × 18 inches, a heating element, a relay, a liquid crystal display (LCD) module, an l2C module, control buttons, a light emitting diode (LED), 220 Ω resistors, 5 volts’ power supply, transparent 2 mm thick acrylic sheet, a mattress, Wi-Fi module and LED based phototherapy blanket. An IoT platform was developed for real-time monitoring of temperature and humidity of the
incubator which can be accessed by a password protected graphical user interface (GUI) application developed using C programing language. Modelling and simulation of the incubator environment based on standard thermodynamic principles were performed using Python programming language. A relatively stable temperature and humidity suitable for an infant was observed in the developed device. The IoT platform was effective in monitoring the temperature and humidity of the device. Incubator temperature attained steady state in 200 seconds. The environmental conditions were
found to be suitable for a neonate. The device was effective for real-time monitoring of environmental conditions in the incubator
Description
Scholarly articles
Keywords
Humidity , Smart medical devices , Phototherapy blanket , Neonatal incubator , Research Subject Categories::MEDICINE
Citation
Nwaneri, S.C. Sojobi, J.W. Oyelade, A.O. & Ezenwa, B.N. (2020) A Low Cost IoT Based Neonatal Incubator for Resource Poor Settings, West Indian Journal of Engineering, 43(1):11-21.