Title: Development of a wireless intravenous drip rate monitoring device

Authors: Pratyush Kumar Patnaik; Suraj Kumar Nayak; Anilesh Dey; Sirsendu Sekhar Ray; Kunal Pal

Addresses: Department of Biotechnology and Medical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, Odisha – 769008, India ' Department of Biotechnology and Medical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, Odisha – 769008, India ' Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Narula Institute of Technology, Kolkata, West Bengal – 700109, India ' Department of Biotechnology and Medical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela-769008, India ' Department of Biotechnology and Medical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela-769008, India

Abstract: Biotelemetry increases the efficiency of the healthcare professionals. This study proposes the development of a wireless-communication-enabled low-cost, automated drip rate monitoring system, used for intravenous (IV) therapy. The proposed system monitors the falling fluid drops inside the drip chamber, and subsequently calculates and displays the drip rate on a liquid crystal display (LCD) panel. It is capable of wirelessly notifying the central monitoring station when the drip rate is outside the set range. The system was designed using a light emitting diode (LED), a light-dependent resistor (LDR), a microcontroller and an Xbee wireless module. The proposed device is simple, user-friendly and can reduce the workload of the healthcare givers by reducing their regular visit to the patient site.

Keywords: drip rate; intravenous infusion; LED; light emitting diode; LDR; light-dependent resistor; microcontroller; Arduino Uno; Zigbee; wireless network; mesh topology; graphical user interface.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSNET.2019.098287

International Journal of Sensor Networks, 2019 Vol.29 No.3, pp.159 - 170

Received: 21 Apr 2017
Accepted: 03 Aug 2018
Published online: 11 Mar 2019 *

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