Neonatal Incubator

Low Cost Neonatal Incubator with Smart Control System

Abstract— A neonatal incubator has been designed, modeled and developed which is incorporated with embedded temperature and humidity control system. The chamber has two compartments; larger and smaller. Smaller compartment consists of temperature and humidity control unit and larger compartment consists of a mattress where the baby is kept. The control system components include relative sensors, fans, bulbs, heater and Arduino Uno microcontroller. For implementation, a software program has been developed in C which comprises a code editor. A flowchart is provided to illustrate the logical expression of the program. The salient features of the model are – it is entirely microcontroller

Entire chamber of the incubator is constructed using Acrylic sheet as it is more advantageous over glass and plastic. This material is less dense – its density can range from 1150-1190 kg/m3. This is less than half the density of glass which ranges 2400 to 2800 kg/m3. Transportation and assembling of acrylic materials are consequently easier and cheaper. Main chamber consists of two compartments. Larger compartment keeps the baby in and smaller compartment comprises of control units. The control unit section has three portions. The lower portion is the heating unit. Heating unit consists of an incandescent bulb and a 12V dc fan. There are slits on the joining wall of the unit. The fan exert air flow which becomes heated by the bulb heat and passes through the slit to the baby room. The dc fan and bulb starts running when the baby room temperature reduces from 37oC and stops when the sensor gives the signal that the baby room temperature is above 37oC. The upper portion has two subsection. One is cooling unit and the other is humidity control unit. Some ice are kept in the cooling unit to reduce the temperature when it goes beyond 37oC. A 12V dc fan is attached outside the cooling chamber to flow the air stream to the baby room in order to confine the temperature within 37oC. The humidity control unit has the capacity to collect the molten water from the ice of cooling chamber.

Fig. 11 exemplifies the process control by Arduino UNO microcontroller. Here a whole day (24 hour) data of controlled temperature is inset with the ambient temperature of the same day. At 00:00 am the temperature of atmosphere was low and almost constant up to morning 6:00 am. Then it rises with the day time and again lowered at and after 5:00 pm. But the system for keeping preterm baby safe and sound the temperature is needed to be constant within the range. The incubator constructed has been efficient at doing this and the graph shows that it kept the temperature of the baby compartment at 36oC to 37oC irrespective of ambient temperature.

Fig. 11. Temperature variation in the incubator for control system

C. Humidity Control Unit Humidity is another critical factor for preterm infants. Fig. 12 depicts the humidity control by Arduino microcontroller system and its variation with the ambient humidity. The baby room is maintained within the RH level of 70% to 75% though the humidity in the immediate vicinity of the incubator varies from 30% to 80% at different time of the day.

Fig. 12. Humidity variation of the neonatal incubator and it’s ambient

VII.