Abstract:
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Premature born neonates often need special cares because some vital organs, biochemical
or enzyme systems may not have developed su ciently, with the results that the infant is
unlikely to survive undamaged without special protection. Depending on culture and on
geographic location, either thermal contact with the mother or thermal insulation has been
a major form of protection for many centuries. The purpose of this study has been to design
and implement a closed loop control system to regulate the temperature inside a neonatal
incubator. This closed loop control system has been designed using the software in the loop
technique, which minimizes the hardware related work and concentrates all the decision-
making in the software. The closed loop implemented is a combination of sensing devices
and actuators that operate synchronously to provide a stable thermal environment inside the
incubator. The sensing devices are ve resistance temperature detectors placed following the
IEC-60601 standards, two current sensors, which give feedback information about the power
consumption of the actuators, and two disturbance sensors that provide information about
the opening of the incubator clappers. The actuators, which produce the stable environment
inside the incubator, are the heater and the motor that propels the fan. Results con rm that
the closed loop control system has been successfully implemented and the software designed
is able to maintain a stable temperature inside the incubator. Moreover, the prototype
implemented allows continuing the task started with this work, with further optimization and
improvement of the controller. |