Prototype of a Neonatal Incubator using a PID

Controller trained by a neural network

Jans Velsquez, Alex Chamorro, E. Cuellar Ventura, Mario Chauca
Faculty of electrical and electronic engineering National University of Callao
Lima, Per
janskevin27@gmail.com.pe
Stiwar_1003@outlook.com
alchhu30@gmail.com
mario.chauca@iiitec.org

became the primary means for care of neonates, a great demand

Abstract the main purpose of this project is to design neural PID arose for this in the health sector. [4]
control to control the temperature and humidity variables of an A neonate or newborn is a baby that has 28 days or less from
incubator for neonates. This requires the use of three sensors, the birth. These days represent a time where very rapid changes
first is to control the temperature of the skin of the neonate, the
occur, which is why critical events can occur.
second is to control the temperature of the air inside the incubator
and the third is to control the humidity inside the incubator. For According to Pollitt (2002), birth weight is an important
the supervision of the time graphs of the variables and their indicator of the state of health of the child in the womb and the
respective control of these the LabVIEW software will be used. newborn; and low birth weight, determined by a delay in
For the acquisition of the variables will be used the Arduino intrauterine growth, is associated with problems in infant
microcontroller one. The controller will be a neuronal PID which mental development and cognitive development of preschool
will control the variables. The actuators used are a pair of lights children.
and a fan, which will deliver heat to the neonate by means of
convection. At the national level, 7% of the children, who were weighed at
Key Words Neuronal Network, PID, Sensors, Temperature,
birth, were born with a weight lower than 2.5 kg, which
Humidity, Incubator, Infant.
represents around 41,700 children born in a year. [6]
I. INTRODUCTION
The incubators is a biomedical equipment, they are used
essentially for low birthweight infants, these are newborns
weighing less than 2,500 grams, these are more characteristic
in premature neonates, newborns, but before 37 weeks of
pregnancy. These neonates have a series of complications and
one of these is the difficulty of maintaining their body
temperature at 36-37 C, which would be ideal. The incubator
allows them to maintain the appropriate temperature until they
can do it by themselves, this is something that depends on the Figure.1 Children with low birth weight, by area of
same newborn. residence and natural region-Peru.
In Peru, 43% of the fetal-neonatal mortality corresponds to
The need for neonatal incubators arose due to the constant deaths with birth weight less than 1500grs.Thanks to the weight
deliveries of premature babies, who, without an adequate and the gestational age at birth we can determine what is the
means simulating their mother's womb, run the risk of not temperature for a neutral thermal environment. [9]
dying. [1,2] These incubators perform the job of simulating a
neutral environment appropriate for neonates.

The incubator is equivalent to the kangaroo method, it is a

method of thermal control and affective attachment that
consists in the placement of the newborn on the bare back of
the mother (skin to skin) [3]

Initially, the incubators only met the basic needs of the

newborns, by controlling variables such as temperature, Figure.2 Temperature for a neutral thermal environment
humidity and luminosity. Its design was simple, although its according to the gestational age at birth and the first
handling was complex for the medical staff, which implied a postnatal days. [9]
lot of attention and a constant check-up. Because the incubator
 weights. The processing units are called neurons. Each unit
receives inputs from other nodes and generates a simple scalar
output that depends on the available local information, stored
internally or arriving through the connections with weights.
Many complex functions can be performed depending on the
connections. [5]
General equation of a neural network.
a m F m wm .a m1 bm
a m : Net output of layer m.
Figure.3 Temperature for a neutral thermal environment
according to the weight of the newborn and from the F m : Activation function of the layer m.
seventh postnatal day. [9] a m 1 : Net output of the previous layer m-1.
Regarding the humidity, in the premature, the amount of heat w m : Weights of the layer m.
that can be lost by the mechanism of evaporation is particularly
important. This occurs in the form of insensible water losses b m : Polarization of the layer m,
and is known as Lost Transepidermal (PTEA) water. The II. PROCESS
contribution of the PTEA to the thermal stability of the RN is
complex and depends on many factors. [10] A. Design
In a global way this project can be divided into two parts, the
TABLE I: Humidification of Incubators depending on the first part consists of a neural network, which is used to
week of gestation and the postnatal days. establish the appropriate temperature and humidity of a
weeks of gestation 0-7days 8-14days 15-21days >22days
neutron environment, depending on the age of management,
23-27 SG 80% 70% 50% 50%
weight and postnatal days.
28-30 SG 70% 60% 50% 0%
31-35 SG 60% 50% 0% 0%
> 36 SG 0% 0% 0% 0%

Normal values of temperature in the term newborn (WHO

1997).
Normal central body temperature: It is considered at
the axillary and rectal temperature. When the baby is
born, it passes from the intrauterine medium, where Figure.4 Block Diagram of the Neural Network, in charge
the temperature suitable for its well-being is of the Set-point for the controller. Indicates the entries
maintained at around 37.5 C. [18] and exits of the Network.
Skin temperature: Considered at the abdominal The second part consists of the control part of the sensors and
temperature. The normal value is 36.0-36.5 C). actuators charged to maintain the temperature and humidity
American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). values depending on the output of the neural network.
TABLE II: Body and Skin Temperature according to the
type of Hypothermia. [11]

body skin
hypothermia
temperatureC temperature
mild 36-36.4C 35.5-35.9C
moderate 32-35.6C 31.5-35.4C
serious <32C <31.5C B. Figure.5 Block diagram of the temperature and
A recommendation for neonates with hypothermia is to reheat humidity control stage of the incubator. Indicates each
at 1 C / ha unless the infant's weight is less than 1200 g, the part of the control system.
gestational age is less than 28 weeks, or the temperature is less C. Parameter Calculation
than 32 C (89.6 C). F) and the infant can be reheated more For the calculation of the first part of the project, an RNA is
slowly (with a ratio not exceeding 0.6 C). Another designed, which from the 3 inputs, obtain the desired
recommendation is that, during rewarming, the temperature of temperature and humidity. First we define the structure of the
the skin should not be 1 C warmer than the rectal core RNA, which must have 3 layers of input, 2capas de salida, pero
temperature. [5]Las RNA se definen como sistemas de mapeos para el nmero de capas ocultas se obtiene de manera
nonlinear whose structure is based on principles observed in the experimental, there is not yet a reliable method that allows to
nervous systems of humans and animals. They consist of a large determine with precision the optimal number of these. [12]
number of simple processors linked by connections with
 1 r * total (4)
2 total 1 (5)
Transfer function.
k
G( s ) (6)
1s 1 2 s 1
Figure.6 Structure of the Neural Network. Design of the
RNA made in Matlab 2013a. Transfer function obtained from the temperature plant:
After several workouts a desired result was obtained, with 6 ke0.098 s
neurons in the hidden layer. 1 0.001* s 1 0.021* s
One method that solves this problem is the modified
The function obtained has a dead time of 0.098s.
LevenbergMarquardt algorithm or trainbr. This algorithm is
Calculation of the parameters Kp, Ki and Kd, by the method of
designed to approximate second-order training speeds without
the place of the roots. The Root Place (LDR) is a set of rules by
having to calculate the Hessian matrix. [13]
which the position of the solutions of the characteristic equation
For the calculation of synaptic weights and polarizations, the
can be determined in the complex plane, when one or several
gradient descent method was used:
parameters of the system transfer function, in open loop, they
wm wm S m (a m1 )T (9) vary in their range. [14]
bm bm S m t s 4
4
(7)
(10) wn
w: synaptic weights
b: Polarization. 1 2
S: sensitivity. Mp e (8)
: reason for learning Values obtained:
Kp=0.0419; Ki=0.517; Kd=0.00085.
For the modeling of the plant, the step jump test method is used. Parallel PID controller.
To perform the experiment the system is first brought to the
steady state. The manipulated variable is quickly changed to a
new constant value and the output is recorded. The measured
data is scaled to correspond to a unit step. [7]

Figure.8 Parallel design of PID controller. [8]

Parallel PID controller transfer function:
KIxTs KDx 1 z
1
U (z)
KP
1 z 1
Figure.7 Process on cushioning of second order. (9)
E s Ts
In order to calculate the transfer function of the plant, we apply
the following formulas: C. Circuit
y f yo Feeding Stage
k (1) The Arduino board, consists of a microcontroller that is an
u f uo electronic device encapsulated in a circuit of high integration
Gain of the transfer function. level [15], The nominal value of the voltage of continuous
y ' yo supply (DC) for the devices TTL (Transistor-TransistorLogic,
y fr (2) logic transistor-
y f uo + 5V and -5V power, for this reason a reducing transformer was
used from 220V to 6V and these are regulated to + 5V and -5V.
T73 To
T ' To (3)
2.6
Poles of the transfer function.
 II. RESULTS
The summary of the results obtained by each training method
is shown in table 3.

TABLE III: Summary of the results obtained from the

RNA training.
Figure.9a Figure9.b number I reach the
a.Diagram of the circuit of the power supply. Design of the method
of layers number of times goal? error
symmetric power supply. trainbr 6 320 yes 0.00993
b. Diagram of the Arduino Uno Controller, power stages trainbr 10 343 yes 0.009861
and sensor inputs. trainbr 15 313 yes 0.0099487
trainlm 6 21 no 185537.67
Below is shown in figure 8.1 and 8.2 the schematic diagram of
trainlm 10 234 no 0.019771
the controller stage consisting of an Arduino Uno, selector trainlm 15 31 no 195.7554
buttons and an LCD screen, as indicator. traingda 10 108 no 96.35
traingda 10 284 no 106.78

It is observed that for the trainbr method the target is reached

which is a quadratic error of 0.01 with a number of layers of 6,
10 and 15 hidden layers.
Figure 15 shows that the error is close enough to the specified
value of 0.01 at time 391 with an error of 0.009993, this is due
Figure.10.a to the fact that the activation functions of the hidden layer are
tangential sigmoidal functions and the activation function of
the Output layer are linear functions.

Figure.10b
a.Diagram of the selector buttons responsible for
establishing the set-points. Circuit diagram of the fan.
Design made in Proteus 8.
Figure.12. Response obtained using the trainbr method.
b. Power circuit diagram, for the 220W focus actuator.
Training conducted in Matlab 2013a.
Design made in Proteus 8.
The optocoupler It is simply a capsule that contains an infrared
Figure 16 shows the response to a temperature of 28 C, where
LED and a photodetector similar to a silicon diode [16],
it has an error of 1.48, the environment was developed in the
isolating the DC and AC stage.
Labview 2013 software.
Next, the sensors used with their conditioning stage are shown
in FIG. 10 and 11.

Figure.11b Figure.11b
Figure.13 Response obtained for the control of the
a.Diagram of the conditioning circuit, for the LM35 temperature variable. Visual environment made in the
temperature sensor. Design made in Proteus 8. labview 2013 software.

b. Diagram of the conditioning circuit for the temperature II. CONCLUSIONS

sensor, thermistor 100k NTC. Design made in Proteus 8.
It is observed that the implementation of this project is viable
due to the results obtained in this prototype, because the value
of the desired variables could be reached, and that the network
could give us the appropriate temperature and humidity values
according to the desired parameters.
It is observed that in the training it is better to use a tangential
sigmoid activation function than a logistics for the hidden
layers, since due to this we can get closer to the specified error.
It is observed that the most efficient method for training RNA
is the trainbr method. This project can be implemented because
we obtain an efficient control response and the price of the
materials used is more economical to be produced in large
quantities.The error obtained in the control of the temperature
is of 1.48 this is something big due to the sensors and actuators
used.
III. OBSERVATIONS
Although it is possible to control the desired temperature, the
time in which this temperature is reached is not yet specified in
the code, this is something important since depending on the
newborn the time to reach the desired temperature is different.
The sensors used have a low accuracy, this is because this is a
prototype of an incubator.
It is observed although in the training of the network it
approaches the specified error of 0.01, this is something that
increases when we implement it in the arduino UNO, this is due
to the libraries that it lacks.
It was necessary to use digital filters for the case of temperature
sensors due to the number of samples, for this an average of 50
samples were made.Recomendaciones
For a better result a fourth parameter would have to be added,
which would be the reach time of the temperature specified by
the user. This is due to neonates with hypothermia.
It is advisable to use temperature sensors with a high precision,
for the sensing of the environment inside the incubator, since
for this project an lm35 was used because it has a linear
response.
It is recommended to create functions so that the code execution
time is faster.
IV. REFERENCIAS
[1]. Castrilln B., Ajito E., Barrios A., Solrzano E., Tarrillo J.
Burbuja Artificial Neonatal (BAN). II Congreso Colombiano
de Bioingeniera e Ingeniera Biomdica, Bogot, octubre de
2005
[2]. Zaragoza I., Gmez Y., Cabrera A. Diseo y construccin de
un prototipo de incubadora controlada por lgica difusa.
Memorias II Congreso Latinoamericano de Ingeniera
Biomdica, 2001.
[3]. Ministerio de Salud Pblica del Ecuador Recin nacido
prematuro. Gua de Prctica Clnica. Quito: Ministerio de
Salud Pblica, Direccin Nacional de Normatizacin-MSP;
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[4]. Restrepo P., Durango L., Gmez S., Gonzlez R., Rivera B.
Prototipo de incubadora neonatal. Revista Ingeniera
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[5]. Inteligencia Artificial con Aplicaciones a la Ingeniera. Dr.
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V. BIOGRAFIA
Jans Velasquez, was born in Lima, El Agustino district, on
December 27, 1995. Currently studying at the National
University of Callao in the Faculty of Electrical
Engineering, I also study Industrial Automation and
Networks with SCADA system. His areas of interest
include Process Automation, microcontroller programming
and research of neural networks for process application.
Alex Chamorro, Nation in Lima 30-12-1993 Pregade
student of the National University of Callao, training in
industrial automation with PLC in TECSUP
Alchhu@gmail.com (+51)975415254
Estyward Cuellar , nacio en Lima 05-07-1995
Undergraduate student of the National University of
Callao, training in Gamor Industrial Automation
Stiwar_1003@outlook.com +51940619476
Mario Chauca He was born in Ica on 11-30-1966. Study at
the Universidad Ricardo Palma undergraduate and at the
San Luis Gonzaga University of Ica, postgraduate for
baccalaureate, masters and doctorate respectively,
specialization in ESAN and INICTEL, training in PMI
project management and teaching.