DIY GROUP PROJECT GROUP-9

AUTOMATED TEMPERATURE AND LIGHT CONTROL

WITHIN NEONATAL CHAMBERS
Linking Technology

Saving Lives

The Team:
1. Sharannya Ghosh 20CS10054
2. Sanskriti 20MI31018
3. Sourish Ray 20EC10078
4. Priyanshu Gautam 20EE30021
 Acknowledgement
We would like to thank our DIY Lab teachers Prof. A.K.Goswami , Prof. Mamoni Banerjee and Prof.
Gouri Gargate for giving us the golden opportunity to do the wonderful project on the topic "Auto-
Regulatory actions of neonatal chambers". It helped us in doing a lot of research and we came across
a lot of valuable information regarding programming and logic circuits of electronic gadgets. We
would also like to thank our TAs, whose timely insights and suggestions helped us in finishing the
project within the allotted time.

Project Background
Premature birth is a significant health problem associated with neonatal mortality and diseases like
Jaundice and underdeveloped organs. According to WHO every year around 15 million babies are
born immaturely around the world. Under this project we try to address the issue in an economical
and handy manner. Our project has two main components the control of light and temperature
within Incubators.

Incubator

Light Temperature

The Importance of light within an Incubator

The most common disease with which almost all term and preterm babies suffer is infantile
jaundice.Infant jaundice is yellow discoloration of a newborn baby's skin and eyes. Infant
jaundice occurs because the baby's blood contains an excess of bilirubin, a yellow pigment
of red blood cells.Infant jaundice usually occurs because a baby's liver isn't mature enough
to get rid of bilirubin in the bloodstream.Yellowing of the skin and the whites of the eyes —
the main sign of infant jaundice usually appears between the second and fourth day after
birth. The main and most applied treatment of Infantile Jaundice is Phototherapy.
Phototherapy is the use of blue green spectrum (wavelengths 430-490 nm) of light to treat
severe jaundice in the neonatal period. Approximately 60% of term babies and 85%
preterm babies will develop clinically apparent jaundice, which classically becomes visible
on day 3, peaks days 5-7 and resolves by 14 days of age in a term infant and by 21 days in
the preterm infant. Treatment with phototherapy is implemented in order to prevent the
neurotoxic effects of high serum unconjugated bilirubin. Phototherapy is a safe, effective
method for decreasing or preventing the rise of serum unconjugated bilirubin levels and
reduces the need for exchange transfusion in neonates.

The Approach
We under this project will be working for the illumination compartment of the incubator
which will have the task of maintaining adequate lighting conditions for the preterm baby so
that its phototherapy could be done the circuit we used for this is shown below.

The Illumination Circuit of the incubator

LEDs

LEDs
Resistors

Resistors Breadboard

Arduino

Circuit : 1

The The Purpose

Element
Arduino The heart of the circuit, controls the circuit through the code
provided
LEDs (6) 1. Blue LEDs serve to maintain lighting conditions
2. Red LEDs : Constitute the alarm system
3. Green LED : Indicates normal working

Resistors (6) Maintain the Current according to the limit of the Arduino
and the LED
Breadboard The platform of assembly of the circuit
 Table : 1
Modus Operandi: The Circuit shown above is an Arduino based circuit. The way that it
operates is it takes the bilirubin content of the baby and adjusts the no. of LEDs that has to
glow in order to reach the optimum level of lighting. The higher the bilirubin content the
higher is the number of LEDs that have to glow. The additional LEDs installed are for specific
purposes. The red LED is a sign for danger which glows on either extremely high levels of
bilirubin or high levels. The green LED indicates that the phototherapy should be started.

Code :

The setup() function is called

when a sketch starts. Use it to
initialize variables, pin modes,
start using libraries, etc. The
setup() function will only run
once, after each powerup or
reset of the Arduino board.
 Pin 12 is set HIGH i.e. the
green led glows when
concentration is more
than 2

If the concentration is more

than 5 both pin 12 and 13
are set HIGH to make the
green and a blue led glow.

If the concentration is more than 8 pins

12 ,13 and 8 are set HIGH to increase the
intensity of phototherapy by switching on
one more blue light.

If concentration is more than 12 pin 7

is also set HIGH and if the
concentration is greater than 16 pin 4
is set HIGH making all the 5 leds glow.

If concentration is more than 20 pin 2 is

set HIGH making the red led blink. The
blinking red led is an indication that the
phototherapy is not able to solve the
problem and the baby is in danger.
The Role of Temperature Control within an
Incubator

The healthcare provider has a crucial role in preventing heat loss and providing a stable thermal
environment for neonates and infants. The neutral thermal environment (NTE) has been defined as
maintenance of the infants’ temperature with a stable metabolic state along with minimal oxygen
and energy expenditure. The NTE is best achieved when infants can maintain a core temperature at
rest between 36.5°C and 37.2°C. Thermoregulation is a vital body function, which is reflective of
physiological maturity. Effective thermoregulation requires adequate energy stores (primarily
glucose), insulation (fat deposits), hypothalamic function and muscle tone. It is widely supported
that kangaroo mother care is the most effective method of regulating the neonatal temperature,
however frequently in the critical care setting this is unable to be achieved. Furthermore, neonates
and infants in the hospital setting frequently require a large portion of their body surface exposed
 for assessment and procedures which may lead to cold stress. Persistent cold stress is associated
with increased morbidity and mortality; thus, it is imperative to optimize thermoregulation. In
order to ensure the neutral thermal environment is maintained in infants who are unable to achieve
this with their own physiological measures, it is essential to provide environmental thermostability
by blocking avenues of heat loss, and applying adequate radiant warmth in a suitable cot.

The Thermoregulation Circuit of the Incubator

Servo Motors

Peizospeaker
Breadboard
Temperature
sensor

Arduino
UNO

Circuit 2
Apparatus List
The Element The Purpose
Arduino The heart of the circuit, controls the circuit through
the code provided
Senses the temperature and according to the codes
Temperature activate the heating / cooling circuitry as required
sensor(LM35)

Resistors (2) Maintain the Current according to the limit of the

Arduino and the LED
 Breadboard The platform of assembly of the circuit
Servo Motor Works as switch and is the main component which
automates our system
Piezo speaker Serves as alarm system for indicating immediate
attention requirements
Table 2
Modus Operandi: The Circuit Input is given via the A0 pin and as the name suggests it is an
analog signal of the temperature inside the incubator. These signals are then mapped to motor pin
no. 3 or motor pin 11 according to whether the temperature of the incubator is high (in case of
which the external cooling circuitry will switch on) or low (for switching on external heating circuit).
Now in case of the failure of the machine to maintain the required temperature range the piezo
speaker buzzes serving as an alarm system.

CODE:

The setup() function is called

when a sketch starts. Use it to
initialize variables, pin modes,
start using libraries, etc. The
setup() function will only run
once, after each powerup or
reset of the Arduino board.
Optimum temp ranges from 36.5 to
37.2 Celsius. When the temp sensor
reads temp in this range then neither
the heater nor the cooler is turned on.
The servo is rotated by 60(switch in off
position).

When temperature rises above

37.2 cooler is turned on by
rotating servo attached to pin 3
to 120 degree
If temperature falls below 36.5
Celsius heater is turned on by
rotating the servo attached to
pin 11 to 120 degrees

If temperature rises to 38
degrees or above the mechanism
fails and alarm is turned on by
setting pin 13 to High for the red
led to glow

If temperature falls
below 25 alarm is again
raised but with a
different tone this time
and pin 13 is set to high
value for the red led to
glow
Challenges Faced
 Arduino is an electronic board with maximum operating voltage of 5V. Whereas devices
used for heating/cooling purposes were electrical in nature thus naturally requiring high
voltage (and hence power) for operation. Hence we had to find a linking element between
the electrical and electronic circuits by using the two servos.
 Adjusting rotation angle and fixing the servos to the switchboard was a time consuming
process given that every unsuccessful attempt would take up one round of simulation.
 Calibration of the temperature sensor was quite difficult owing to its rapid fluctuations and
slightly different behaviour from what was expected. We had to adjust the necessary
multiplying factors and expressions in the code and check for subsequent cases to find the
ideal combination.
 Ultimately, it was fairly difficult for 4 of us from 4 different locations to meet, coordinate and
implement our common ideas online, in addition to the time and monetary constraints
(Total expenditure was around Rs.1900 barring the electrical devices). However, with our
earnest efforts, we overcame the complications.

Future Prospects
Our project was a working miniature and cost effective model of regulating optimum conditions in
an incubator. However, some improvements in this regard may be possible, including collimating
and uniformly distributing the light intensity over the closed chamber. The heating and cooling
sources are to be adjusted not to directly face the baby but to alter the temperature of the interior
of the incubator overall. Light intensity for therapy is also a function of the baby's age and the
corresponding adjustments can be made. Hence, with some technological and biological
customization, the model may be expanded to cater to larger expectations of the neonatal
department. The power supplied to heating or cooling unit can be regulated on the basis of
deviation of temperature from optimum.

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Thank You
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