65 International Journal of Emerging Trends in Electrical and Electronics (IJETEE – ISSN: 2320-9569) Vol. 11, Issue. 5, Sep-2015. Design and Development of an Infant Incubator for Controlling Multiple Parameters Hitu Mittal 1 , Lini Mathew 1 , Ashish Gupta 2 ABSTRACT: The preterm infant care is one of the most important, delegate and sensitive area in the Bio-medical field. Some new-born’s are at a higher risk of mortality and are called high risk infants, because the gestational age or their birth weight put them at a higher-than-average risk of disease and death. Since most infants hospitalized in NICU are born preterm, the problems of high risk infants are mainly related to prematurity. Thirty eight percent of mortalities in the first 5 years of age belong to prenatal period and out of these, 28% is related to preterm birth. The results of statistics in Iran show that in 1980, 13% of new- born were preterm, while in 2006 more than 30% of births were preterm [3]. Preterm baby requires surrounding exactly similar as in the womb to cope with the external environment. Perhaps the most important conclusion from recent research into the effects of the physical environment on preterm infants is that each infant should have a ‘microenvironment’, which can be individualized to needs that are specific to that child’s gestational age and medical condition. To some extent, the incubator can serve as this microenvironment, controlling light, sound, smell and protecting from infection [3][5]. An infant incubator provides stable levels of temperature, relative humidity, light condition and oxygen level up to an extent in which the preterm have same condition as in the womb. Air temperature has to be maintained around 35ºC [1]. The purpose of this project is to design and implement a closed loop control system to regulate the temperature, humidity, light intensity by using LED’s to avoid jaundice condition and the proper amount of oxygen level inside a neonatal incubator [2]. Microcontroller and PID controller will be used for implementing the hardware. The closed loop control system is a combination of sensors and actuators that operates synchronously to provide a stable thermal environment inside the incubator [3]. Keywords: Incubator, Temperature, Humidity, Oxygen, Light, LED, Microcontroller, PID Controller. I. INTRODUCTION Infants who born before 37 weeks of the gestation period are known as preterm or premature babies. Preterm baby requires surrounding exactly similar as in the womb to cope with the external environment. In fact mammals have the advantage of being homoeothermic, i.e. they have a nearly uniform body temperature, regulated independent of the environmental temperature. Vital organs or enzymes of premature babies grow to the very lesser extent and thus requires special attention to cope with external physical condition like temperature, humidity, light and oxygen level. The infant has several disadvantages in terms of thermal regulation. An infant has a relatively large surface area, poor thermal insulation, and a small amount of mass to act as a heat sink. The new- born has little ability to conserve heat by changing posture and no ability to adjust their own clothing in a response to thermal stress. Responses may also be hindered by illness or adverse conditions such as hypoxia (below normal levels of oxygen). To provide the similar environment as in the womb infants have to be kept in a device known as incubator. An infant incubator is a device consisting of a rigid box-like enclosure in which an infant may be kept in a controlled environment for medical care. An infant incubator provides stable levels of temperature, relative humidity and oxygen concentration [28]. Air temperature has to be maintained around 37ºC. The relative humidity should follow set values according to the number of incubation days [18]. II. INCUBATOR The first official neonatal intensive-care unit (NICU) for neonates was established in 1961 at Vanderbilt University. Incubator is a device in which premature or unusually small babies are placed and which provides a controlled and protective environment for their care [4]. Every year, about 1 million infants in the developing world die due to heat loss and dehydration that can be prevented by an intensive care unit i.e. incubators[3]. Thus incubators provides congenial atmosphere for the infants, which helps in thermoregulation. The incubator is considered as an air conditioned room with special specification which we can be control with respect to the condition of baby in incubator. Incubators are designed to provide an optimal environment for new born babies with growth problems (premature baby) or with illness problems [4]. The incubator is an isolated area environment with no dust, bacteria, and has the ability to control temperature, humidity, and oxygen to remain them in acceptable levels. Incubator is designed to keep baby warm, to monitor many of their vital body functions like heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation and to support their breathing if necessary. Regarding the temperature and humidity control, incubators should minimize heat loss from the neonate and eddies around him/her. The main physical variables affecting the incubator environment are temperature, humidity, oxygen saturation and light.