NEONATAL INTENSIVE CARE UNIT (NICU)

 

INTRODUCTION

                  Today, technology is advancing in all possible directions, especially in the field of health and care products especially where the requirements are supporting life. Additional care is taken when it comes to babies. Especially in case of premature (infants that come into the world earlier than full-term) babies / Low birth weight (less than 1Kg) babies, who wouldn’t have developed the thermo-regulatory mechanism (i.e. not able to adjust to the outside environmental temperature because of lack the body fat) the precaution is doubled.

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is designed to provide an atmosphere that limits stress on the infant and meets basic needs of warmth, nutrition, care and protection to assure proper growth and development. In such cases babies have to be kept either naked / half-naked in an incubator (which has the capability to maintain the temperature inside it and comforts the baby).

 

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

FLASH _MAGIC

      This is a Tool from Philips for Programming the controllers that are flash programmable and that supports serial programming of devices.

Flash microcontroller can be erased and re-written as many times as possible.

The Boot loader Inside the Chip understands the protocol received from computer through serial port.

Flash Magic identifies the hardware when the controller chip is inserted. Program for the target microcontroller can be now either read back or sent as Intel format HEX file.

Support locking of devices can be done to prevent reading back of programmed chip.

After locking the chip can still be erased and used again for loading new programs.

 

HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

TEMPARECHAR SENSOR( LM35)

The LM35 series are precision integrated-circuit temperature sensors, whose output voltage is linearly proportional to the Celsius (Centigrade) temperature. The LM35 thus has an advantage over linear temperature sensors calibrated in ° Kelvin, as the user is not required to subtract a large constant voltage from its output to obtain convenient Centigrade scaling. The LM35 does not require any external calibration or trimming to provide typical accuracies of ±1⁄4°C at room temperature and ±3⁄4°C over a full −55 to +150°C temperature range. Low cost is assured by trimming and calibration at the wafer level.

 

PIC CONTROLLER (PIC16F877A)

            PICs are popular with both industrial developers and hobbyists alike due to their low cost, wide availability, large user base, extensive collection of application notes, availability of low cost or free development tools, and serial programming (and re-programming with flash memory) capability.PIC16F877A is a latest Enhanced Flash Microcontrollers  From MicrochipPIC16F877A is very popular because of its affordable price. Apart from that it is also very easy to be assembled. Additional components that you need to make this IC work are just a 5V power supply adapter, a 20MHz crystal oscillator and 2 units of 22pF capacitors.

DC MOTER

          An adjustable speed drive is a device that controls speed, and direction of an AC or DC motor .Some high performance drives are able to run in torque regulation mode.

         Magnets are polarized, with a positive and a negative side. A DC motor uses the attraction between opposite poles and the repulsion of like poles to convert electric energy into kinetic energy. As the magnets within the DC motor attract and repel one another, the motor turns. The magnetic force on the armature works perpendicular to both wire and magnetic field. An electric switch called a commutator reverses the direction of the electric current in the armature twice every cycle. The poles of the electromagnet push and pull against the permanent magnets on the outside of the motor. As the poles of the armature electromagnet pass the poles of the permanent magnets, the commutator reverses the polarity of the armature electromagnet. During that instant of switching polarity, inertia keeps the motor going in the proper direction.

RELAY

          A  relay  is  an electrically operated switch. Many relays use an electromagnet to operate a switching mechanism mechanically, but other operating principles are also used. Relays are used where it is necessary to control a circuit by a low-power signal (with complete electrical isolation between control and controlled circuits), or where several circuits must be controlled by one signal. The first relays were used in long distance telegraph circuits, repeating the signal coming in from one circuit and re-transmitting it to another. Relays were used extensively in telephone exchanges and early computers to perform logical operations

LCD

Liquid Crystal Display also called as LCD is very helpful in providing user interface as well as for debugging purpose. The most common type of LCD controller is HITACHI 44780 which provides a simple interface between the controller & an LCD. These LCD's are very simple to interface with the controller as well as are cost effective .The most commonly used ALPHANUMERIC displays are 1x16 (Single Line & 16 characters), 2x16 (Double Line & 16 character per line) & 4x20 (four lines & Twenty characters per line). 

The LCD requires 3 control lines (RS, R/W & EN) & 8 (or 4) data lines. The number on data lines depends on the mode of operation. If operated in 8-bit mode then 8 data lines + 3 control lines i.e. total 11 lines are required. And if operated in 4-bit mode then 4 data lines + 3 control lines i.e. 7 lines are required. How do we decide which mode to use? It’s simple if you have sufficient data lines you can go for 8 bit mode & if there is a time constrain i.e. display should be faster then we have to use 8-bit mode because basically 4-bit mode takes twice as more time as compared to 8-bit mode.      

ZIGBEE

          ZigBee is a new wireless technology developed by the igBee Alliance to overcome the limitations of BLUETOOTH and Wi-Fi. ZigBee is developed on the top of IEEE 802.15.4 standard. It is designed for low-power consumption allowing batteries to essentially last forever .Though we have couple of methods for multimedia applications, till now nothing has been developed for sensor at working and control machines which require longer battery life and continuous working without human intervention. ZigBee devices allow batteries to last up to ears using primary cells (low cost) without any chargers (low cost and easy installation).

POWER SUPPLY

 The power supply block consists of a Voltage Regulator, Bridge rectifier, Step-down Transformer and a capacitor. This series of fixed-voltage integrated circuit voltage regulators is designed for a wide range of applications these applications include on –card regulation for elimination of noise and distribution problem associated with single point regulation. Each of these regulators can deliver up to 1.5 amps of output current

 

BLOCK DIAGRAM

ADVANTAGES

1. By automation of the controlling system the errors will be very less compared     to manual.

2. More accurate measured injection of liquids into patient body during anesthesia.

DIS ADVANTAGES:

1. Sometimes system may fail to operate as it is designed to operate because of any major errors in the system.

2. All time we cannot depend upon machines or controllers to observe a patient

Who’s life is more valuable than machines.

APPLICATION:

1.      Mainly Used in Operation Theatres of hospitals.

2.       Baby care unit

 

CONCLUSION:

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is designed to provide an atmosphere that limits stress on the infant and meets basic needs of warmth, nutrition, care and protection to assure proper growth and development. In such cases babies have to be kept either naked / half-naked in an incubator (which has the capability to maintain the temperature inside it and comforts the baby).

Here we propose to design NICU where all the things can be automated and can be monitored at regular basis.