Design of a wearable fiber optic respiration sensor for application in NICU incubators

Rudimentary organ function in premature infants is one of the reasons for performing intensive monitoring on premature infants. One of the vital functions that must be monitored is breathing. In this study, we propose a comfortable sensor that uses fiber optic technology to monitor the respiration of premature infants for application in NICU incubators. The device consists of a bending optical fiber integrated into an elastic material which is attached to the outside of an infant’s diaper. The baby’s respiratory movement will cause strain-induced responses in the optical fiber’s sensor, which in turn will change the sensor output intensity. The laser light projected into the optical fiber will not cause heat that could affect the infant, due to the fiber’s maximum power output of 6.02x10⁻⁷ W(-32.2 dBm), which is equivalent to 5.18x10⁻⁴ calorie/hour. Changes in the intensity of light received by the photodiode are processed first by a signal processing circuit and then by an Arduino UNO microcontroller. The results are displayed on a screen. The system is also equipped with a GSM module, enabling it to send the respiration measurement data periodically via a short message service (SMS) with a certain time interval. The system can also send an information about emergency situations, such as apnea. The results of the experiment, which used a ventilator machine to simulate a baby breathing, showed that this system could measure respiratory rates ranging from 10 - 100 breaths per minute with an error of 0.25%.