ISSN (Online) 2394-6849

International Journal of Engineering Research in Electronics and Communication

Engineering (IJERECE)
Vol 4, Issue 1, January 2017

A Portable, Remotely Monitored Neonatal

Incubator
[1]
Subia Sayeed [2] Dr. Bindu A Thomas
[1]
M.Tech, [2] Professor and Head of the Department
Department of Electronics and Communication,
Vidya Vikas Institute of Engineering & Technology,
Mysuru, India
Abstract: - Worldwide consistently more than 4 million newborn children pass on inside of a month of conception. About 25% of
deaths are caused because of complexities of preterm, frequently because of inappropriate warmth regulation, water loss and
neonatal jaundice. The solution to decrease the death rates of the newly born, especially the premature babies is to provide a
womb-like environment outside the mothers body by using an infant incubator. In under developed or remote places like Syria,
Somalia, Nairobi and many more the problem lies in finding a hospital nearby and also the hospitals are not fully facilitated and
may have limited incubator care units. Moreover, people in crisis in such under developed counties cannot afford the average cost
of an incubator care in hospital, therefore a cost effective incubator which can be remotely monitored without the need for the
baby to be hospitalized and also is transportable is the solution. The proposed system gives stable levels of temperature, it monitors
the pulse rate of the baby, provides ultra violet light control, wet detection, low battery detection, and is equipped with Wi-Fi and
GSM modules for the baby to be remotely monitored by the doctor. It is a solar powered system and hence prevents hazardous
situations like babys death during cases of power failure.

Keywords: Neonatal Incubator, Premature infants, Portable, Solar powered, Remotely monitored.

alternatively-powered incubator is vital to developing

I. INTRODUCTION
Most pregnancies last around 40 weeks. Babies
born between 37 and 42 completed weeks of pregnancy are
called full term. Babies born before 37 completed weeks of
pregnancy are called premature. These premature babies
are unable to regulate their temperature unlike adults due
to their low metabolic rates. Due to this, premature babies
are at a greater risk of diabetes, learning and behavioral
problems, cerebral palsy, lung diseases, hearing loses and
heart diseases.
The problem of premature baby can be solved by
using infant incubators. Incubator is used to help an infant
maintain a stable body temperature within a contained,
sterile environment. It is an especially precious tool in the
presence of high premature birth and infant mortality rates
as is typical in third-world environments. For instance,
Malawi has the highest rate of preterm births in the world
[1]. However, modern incubators are expensive and
impractical options for developing nations. Power is
unreliable in third-world countries making high power
drawing incubators that run solely off grid power an issue.
Further, the rural environments do not allow for easy
transport of these complex, delicate machines. Thus, the
need for a durable, portable, remotely monitored,
nations.
While many modern incubators are life-sustaining
inventions in developed nations, their effect can be dulled
in developing nations due to certain barriers. For example,
the Care Plus Access Series Incubators from GE
Healthcare provide a complex thermoregulation system
and sterile, ready access to an infant to ensure highly
effective monitoring and care of the infant [2]. However,
the model weighs between 80 kg and 89 kg and can have
dimensions of 83.8 cm x 71.1 cm x 157.5cm [2]. This
decreases the portability of the invention. In developing
nations with unreliable roadways and transportation,
portability is key to providing quick care to all patients in
need. Further impractically arises from the high cost of the
equipment. The Hemel Baby Incubator (HEBI), while
designed specically for developing environments, has
drawbacks for developing nations. While it is a low-cost,
reliable incubator, it does not have precise temperature
control [3]. Also, both the Care Plus Access and HEBI
encounter the barrier of unreliable power in developing
nations.
In culmination, the objectives of the current
design described in Section II were to create an infant
incubator that will safely incubate the patient by
maintaining a temperature range of 34 37 0C, have
portability, and incorporate solar-power. Further the design

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International Journal of Engineering Research in Electronics and Communication
Engineering (IJERECE)
Vol 4, Issue 1, January 2017
will also have remote monitoring facility using GSM and
Wi-Fi technologies, which will help the nurse/doctor to
remotely monitor the babys condition with the help a
graphical user interface using Wi-Fi and HTML. The
system will also sense the threshold conditions/critical
conditions and send alert messages to the doctor using
GSM.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
This section gives a general background of
physiology of preterm newborn and how the environment
control can make a difference in the life of an infant and it
also discusses the existing infant incubator systems.
A. Physiology
Babies can be categorized according to their
gestation period; Pre term (less than 35 week gestation),
Full term (35 to 42 weeks gestation) and Post term (born
after 42 weeks gestation). Premature babies are those who
are born before the pre-term. If an infant born before 31
weeks gestation evaporative water loss is the main reason
to heat loss. Its because loss of moisture from skin which
causes higher permeability. [4] Heat may loss from the
body by four ways; Conduction, Evaporation, Convection
and Radiation.
The temperature inside the mothers womb is
380C (100.4oF). [5] After birth, the wet baby finds itself in
a much colder environment. So it immediately starts losing
heat thus the thermal protection of the newborn is very
much important. Fig. 1 illustrates the metabolic rate with
body temperature of a preterm baby and normal range of
infant body temperature at which thermo neutrality is
achieved. This temperature range is very narrow and lies
between 36.50C-37.5C. Thus, the environmental
temperature at which the infant regulates its body
temperature can be considered as the neutral (operative)
temperature [6].
Fig. 1 Heat losses from premature baby
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ISSN (Online) 2394-6849
The new born baby cannot regulate its
temperature like an adult. It therefore cools down or heats
up much faster and is able to tolerate only a limited range
of temperature. The smaller the new born the greater the
risk. Thermal stability improves gradually as baby
increases in weight. As the difference between warm
womb temperature and the ambient is very high, most of
the heat loss occurs just after the birth of newborn.
B. Existing Systems
Besides the studies on the importance of the
measurement for the incubators, there are studies on
contributing to the development of the incubator. The
temperature control is very important for the infant health.
Term and preterm infants are unable to produce body heat
through shivering. Dangers for a postnatal heat loss are:
convection, conduction, radiation, evaporation, respiration
and perspiration. They can result in a hypothermia, which
is defined as a body temperature <36C, associated
especially with a higher mortality [7].
Kaitano developed a digital controller to heat and
cool the incubator [8]. Early model temperature control
systems used dial-type analogue control devices. Even
though these systems may have worked very well in the
past, it may be necessary to improve the devices
performance by digitizing the control and display systems.
Lam et al. [9] developed a new fluorescence based
temperature sensor for neonatal care. This has a superior
property as it is non-contact. This sensor removed the
strong adhesive usage obligation to attach the thermistor
probe to the body. These strong adhesives increase
microbial growth and cause serious skin injuries via
epidermal stripping. There is another equipment to keep
the infant warm named with infant radiant warmer and this
equipment is favored in North America especially [10].
Paley et al. [11] developed a new neonatal transport MR-
compatible incubator and monitoring system with a low-
cost design. Abdiche et al. [12] designed an active and
silent control system, which generates and stabilizes the
humidity, according to a set value of water vapor partial
pressure, which is the most representative parameter of
neonate-environment water loss to produce a stable and
controlled micro-climate in incubators.
Development of Wireless Monitoring System for
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.[13], N.S. Joshi ,R.K. Kamet
, P.K. Gaikwad: The research paper depicts a Development
of a Wireless Monitoring System for Neonatal Intensive
Care Unit (NICU); which is an isolated room for a
premature/weak new-born baby. It provides the
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 ISSN (Online) 2394-6849

International Journal of Engineering Research in Electronics and Communication

Engineering (IJERECE)
Vol 4, Issue 1, January 2017
environmental condition as its mothers belly. Lack of
attention to thermoregulation continues to be a cause of
unnecessary deaths in the neonatal population. The system
deploys a set of suitable sensors for the system
development. The analogue signals from sensors are
processed using a Peripheral Interface Controller (PIC)
microcontroller and further transmitted towards the
receiving end with the help of Global System for Mobile
Comunications (GSM) modem using Application Terminal
(AT) commands.
Smart Jacket Design for Neonatal Monitoring
with Wearable Sensors [14] by Sibrecht Bouwstra, Wei
Chen, Loe Feijs Sidarto Bambang Oetomo: The smart
Jacket aims for providing reliable health monitoring as
well as a comfortable clinical environment for neonatal Fig. 2 Block diagram of neonatal incubator
care and parent-child interaction. In this paper explore a
1. Microcontroller: The 18F46K22 is a high speed
new solution for skin-contact challenges that textile
microcontroller with 16 MIPS execution speed, low power
electrodes pose. The jacket is expandable with new
operation with inbuilt extreme low power (XLP)
wearable technologies and has aesthetics that appeal to
technology. This microcontroller acts as a brain of the
parents and medical staff. 6 different sensors where
system. There are 36 input/output lines with multiplexed
mounted on the body to collect bio signals. These sensors
operations, that is, more than one operation in single pin.
stitched in patches .this patches are mounted on jacket.
Whenever smart jacket ware by baby body signal collected
2. DS1820: It is a one wire 9-bit resolution, one
and makes signal conditioning.
millisecond conversion small wire low powered
thermometer, with the resolution of 0.5 degree variation.
Drawback in the Incubator up till now:
This senses uses one line to send and receive data of the
1) In smart jacket incubator, different sensor are
converted temperature. The temperature sensor is used to
mounted on jacket, this requires that the jacket be worn by
sense the temperature of the baby inside the incubator. The
the baby all the time and hence can lead to microbial
specifications of temperature sensor are coded such that if
growth causing infections.
the sensor detects that the temperature is 37 Celsius or
2) Some incubators are made from wood during the
greater, the UV light LEDs get turned off automatically
high humidity it can be harmful for babies.
and an alert message is sent to the nurse/doctor for
immediate action, meanwhile an alarm is set. Likewise, if
III. PROPOSED SYSTEM
the sensor detects that the temperature has reduced to 20
Celsius or less, UV light LEDs will automatically get
One of the most important elements in a
switched on to increase the temperature up to the desired
newborn's survival is the infants temperature regulation.
value.
The newborn baby is readily a mature homoeothermic, but
the range of environmental temperature over which an
3. Pulse oximeter: The idea is to use a heart beat sensor
infant can operate successfully is severely restricted. The
which detects the heart beat when a finger is placed in it,
infants body temperature should be maintained at 36 0C-
by determining the Blood volume at the finger tip. The
37 0C. The incubator system consists of two blocks, one is
sensor calculates the average value of the heart beat and
power hub and another is controlling, monitoring and
displays it for every fifteen seconds. This process is
communication block. The Fig. 2 shows the controlling,
repeated four times, every fifteen seconds. Thus, at the end
monitoring and communication block.
of a minute the average value of the heart beat for four
readings is determined and displayed on the LCD. If the
heart beat exceeds the normal rate, a message will be sent
to the doctor as well as alarm goes on. It consists of

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International Journal of Engineering Research in Electronics and Communication
Engineering (IJERECE)
Vol 4, Issue 1, January 2017
TCRT1000 IR transreceiver high pass filter,
instrumentation amplifier which converts the reflected light
from the blood cell into digital signal to count the heart
rate using 15 seconds x 4 beats/minute.
4. Alarm: Pizo electric buzzer which gives audible
information to the guardian/nurse indicating that the
threshold has been triggered.
5. Ultra Violet light control: It consists of MOSFET and
UV LEDs to give additional source of light for the babies
who are suffering from jaundice. This UV light system also
provides constant temperature controlled by PWM by
using the settings of the incubator which acts as a warmer
to provide womb-like environment.
6. Wi-Fi: It is a 802.11 b/g/n IEEE standard low power,
low radiation compact system which acts as a media
between doctor and the neonate to do the diagnosis process
in a graphical manner. It has HTML format and acts as
both access point and station with upto 11 Mbps speed.
7. GSM: SIM900A triband GSM module used to send the
information to the corresponding guardian/doctor/nurse
when alarm is raised due to the reasons of increase in
temperature, decrease in temperature, high heart beat rate,
low heart beat rate, low battery. Doctor/user can get the
information even when Wi-Fi is offline.
8. Graphical LCD: The 128x64 graphical LCD is a 20 pin
device used to display all the parameters like temperature
in degree centigrade, heart rate in beats per minute,
percentage of UV light, status of the GSM, status of Wi-Fi
and condition of the wet detect.
9. Wet Detector: It is a non-invasive contact resistive
sensor which gives the output when resistance between two
sensors are varied.
Power block consists of solar panel, charge control,
battery, Low dropout regulators as shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 3 Power block diagram of the neonate incubator.
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ISSN (Online) 2394-6849
1. Monocrystaline Solar module: The monocrystaline solar
panel have the efficiency of 40-50% for converting light
into electricity.
2. Low Dropout Regulators: It is used to provide desired
voltage for the peripherals i.e., 3.3V for WiFi, 4.1V for
GSM, 5V for rest of the devices.
3. 12V SLA Battery: 12V Sealed Lead Acid battery with
AH of 7.2 is used as backup supply during the time of
power failures as main supply when there is no power.
IV. RESULT AND ANALYSIS
Neonatal incubators are very important devices.
Inaccurate or insensitive measurement or arrangement of
the parameters in the incubator may seriously affect the
health of our most valuable asset. The health of the babies
is risked with faulty incubator controls. The major concern
of this incubator is to control the temperature of the baby
room and maintain it The within the desired range 360C to
370C. Fig. 4 exemplifies the process control by PIC
microcontroller. Here a whole day (24 hour) data of
controlled temperature is inset with the ambient
temperature of the same day.
Fig. 4 Temperature variation in the incubator for control
system
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
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International Journal of Engineering Research in Electronics and Communication
Engineering (IJERECE)
Vol 4, Issue 1, January 2017
doing this and the graph shows that it kept the temperature
of the baby compartment at 360C to 370C irrespective of
ambient temperature. The neonatal incubator system
provides controlled temperature for the baby and also
monitors the heart rate of the baby and provides a closed
womb-like environment. It also alerts the guardian/doctor
by sending messages when threshold conditions are
reached. Furthermore, it is solar powered and hence can be
very helpful in developing countries which have power
crisis, also it is a cost effective system making it more
advantageous for people in developing countries.
V. FUTURE SCOPE
Besides the features shown in this paper, there is always
scope for improvement in every field, especially in the
field of medicine. Hence, more advanced features can be
added to provide an error free, sophisticated Incubator for
the protection of the infant. Sound monitoring can also be
done, such that whenever the infant feels discomfort and
cries out, the sound triggers an alarm of sorts or a message
(Text or mail) is sent to the concerned authority. Video
cameras can also be installed so as to further monitor the
situation in a more holistic manner. Also, computerized
systems can be developed which provide timely
medication and required nutrition to the infant
automatically, as and when required. Emergency oxygen
supply mechanism can also be incorporated.
VI. CONCLUSION
The need for the advancement in technology and
the invention of useful products and equipments is to
primarily benefit the common man and the society as a
whole. The design approach used here has given
satisfactory results and the PIC microcontroller is
sufficient for measuring the required parameters. The
power consumption has been kept as low as possible and
the measurements made by the device are quite reliable.
The user module has resulted in reducing the work of
humans as the incubator can be remotely monitored, hence
making it more comfortable. The project was aimed
keeping in mind the demands and needs of developing
countries. Also by adding GSM alert, doctor can be
informed by a message of baby parameters. Main purpose
of an incubator is fulfilled which is to maintain an artificial
environment for a neonate to survive.
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ISSN (Online) 2394-6849
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International Journal of Engineering Research in Electronics and Communication

Engineering (IJERECE)
Vol 4, Issue 1, January 2017
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162-167). IEEE.

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