Sanjeev Verma

Design and development of microcontroller-based clinical chemistry analyser for measurement of various blood biochemistry parameters.

Clinical chemistry analyser is a high-performance microcontroller-based photometric biochemical analyser to measure various blood biochemical parameters such as blood glucose, urea, protein, bilirubin, and so forth, and also to measure and observe enzyme growth occurred while performing the other biochemical tests such as ALT (alkaline amino transferase), amylase, AST (aspartate amino transferase), and so forth. These tests are of great significance in biochemistry and used for diagnostic purposes and classifying various disorders and diseases such as diabetes, liver malfunctioning, renal diseases, and so forth. An inexpensive clinical chemistry analyser developed by the authors is described in this paper. This is an open system in which any reagent kit available in the market can be used. The system is based on the principle of absorbance transmittance photometry. System design is based around 80C31 microcontroller with RAM, EPROM, and peripheral interface devices. The developed system incorporates light source, an optical module, interference filters of various wave lengths, peltier device for maintaining required temperature of the mixture in flow cell, peristaltic pump for sample aspiration, graphic LCD display for displaying blood parameters, patients test results and kinetic test graph, 40 columns mini thermal printer, and also 32-key keyboard for executing various functions. The lab tests conducted on the instrument include versatility of the analyzer, flexibility of the software, and treatment of sample. The prototype was tested and evaluated over 1000 blood samples successfully for seventeen blood parameters. Evaluation was carried out at Government Medical College and Hospital, the Department of Biochemistry. The test results were found to be comparable with other standard instruments.

RFID-based navigation of autonomous patient vehicle for hospital management

In recent years, there has been great interest in the emerging field of human assistive devices. Changing lifestyle and demography are two major factors demanding quality healthcare for the Indian population, and technological intervention is the need of the hour. Precise localisation techniques have been the interest of study for decades. Various navigation techniques like global positioning system (GPS), infra red techniques (IR), etc., have been developed. Radio frequency-based localisation technology, RFID, is being used for the precise location inside buildings and operates without line of sight. It uses contactless RFID tags and readers for data transfer. ARDUINO-UNO open system hardware is used to support microcontroller. Using RFID, patient vehicle can be guided remotely and programmed to reach its destination by viewing the stored map. Also, RFID can be used to tag hospital assets and equipment to increase their visibility. Hospital administration will be immensely benefited with such assistive device, as they will not have to depend on extra caretakers.