MUAWIN
One in three Pakistanis is at risk of developing kidney disease due to rapidly rising rates of diabetes and high blood pressure. According to the stats from Shaukat Khanum Hospital, Pakistan ranks number 8th in the world with regards to kidney disease. CKD affects approximately 300 million people wo
2025-06-28 16:34:12 - Adil Khan
MUAWIN
Project Area of Specialization Internet of ThingsProject SummaryOne in three Pakistanis is at risk of developing kidney disease due to rapidly rising rates of diabetes and high blood pressure. According to the stats from Shaukat Khanum Hospital, Pakistan ranks number 8th in the world with regards to kidney disease. CKD affects approximately 300 million people worldwide and is the 10th leading cause of death which results in close to 600,000 deaths each year. No cure exists for the condition. Either, these patients undergo dialysis 2 to 4 times a week or have a transplant. According to the interviews conducted at PIMS and MAX Health many individuals are reluctant in getting their dialysis done on time. This is because dialysis is both painful and expensive. A typical session cost about Rs. 5000. This far exceeds the affordability of the middle-class income group.
Between two consecutive dialysis, patients need to follow a restricted diet plan. When a patient intakes food, they do not know how much of it is being absorbed by the body and how much is being accumulated as waste in the blood. Because every human body is different, we need an effective way to measure the concentration of important nutrients before they reach a critical condition.
We propose solution to this problem. A smart assistive device that can monitor the concentration of potassium, sodium, Creatinine and phosphate ions in the body, using the principle of near infrared spectroscopy. Spectroscopy is a method that can quickly identify and characterize physical material by evaluating variations in the material’s absorption or emission of different wavelength of light.
Based on the concentration of electrolytes the device will generate weekly report on companion mobile app and by keeping a tract of the level of contamination of blood electrolytes, patients will be able to reduce the number of dialysis sessions per month which will save them both money and pain.
Project ObjectivesPakistan has more than 20,000 dialysis patients per year. These include people from all income group. Patients get their dialysis done as per instructed by the doctors, they have their sessions 3,4 times a week not knowing whether their blood is contaminated enough or not. According to the interview conducted at MaxHealth and PIMS, majority of the dialysis patients were ignorant to get their dialysis on time. Some were reluctant to follow a restricted.
Patients missed dialysis session because dialysis is both painful and expensive. One session cost 5000Rs on average and if the patients must get their sessions done 3,4 times a week, that costs them 15,000Rs to 20,000Rs on average. This exceeds the affordability of lower-class income group. Another issue with dialysis patients is that they must follow a restricted diet and can’t enjoy food and life like normal people. They can not consume food of their choice, not even in small quantity.
The basic objective of this project is to improve the quality of life of these patients. The project tends to design an accurate blood electrolyte monitor which could perform the blood electrolyte level measurement. The device aims at giving reasonable results that will keep the dialysis patients updated on their blood contamination level and makes life of dialysis patients much easier.
The objectives defined to achieve the product are listed as follows:
- Develop the proof of concept about electrolyte absorption in NIR light and establish the basic product design based on this concept.
- Verifying parameters such as the wavelength, intensity and absorbance of the light emitted from LEDs.
- Determine the required sensors and sensitivity to gather the required data.
- Mitigate any technical challenges that hamper the overall accuracy of the readings.
- Ergonomic and efficient design of the product.
Spectroscopy is a method which helps to determine about the amount of light absorbed by a chemical substance by measuring the intensity of light, as a beam of light passes through the sample solution. The working principle of Spectroscopy is that different compounds absorbs or transmits light within a certain range of wavelength.
The same principle is being used in our project where we excite the electrolyte and on de-excitation, we measure the wavelength which is in proportional to the concentration of electrolyte present.
The block diagram for the working:
The implemented prototype of the device consisted of a cuvette holder which has the sample solution contained in it. There are two different circuits, one is for the transmitting side and the other is for the receiver side. The cuvette holder will have the LEDs (transmitting unit) on one side and the photo diode (receiving unit) to collect the reading on the other side. The photodiode is placed exactly opposite to the transmitting unit for good results.
We used a PSOC chip as our microcontroller for the project. A PWM of a specific obligation cycle is given to each of the NIR and visible light LEDs whose value is resolved from the datasheets of each of these LEDs. The LEDs excite the specific electrolyte molecules and on de-excitation, the molecules release wavelength in proportion to the electrolyte concentration which is absorbed by the photodiode. The voltage over the photodiode is recorded and transmitted utilizing the UART to the PSOC for each of the four LEDs (each of them flickers in progression and the voltage recorded by the photodiode changes in like manner).
The ADC then samples the voltage over the photodiode each time a specific LED squints and stores its value in an alternate variable for transmission. The transmitted voltages are stored and processed in azure Machine learning studio which gives us a regression equation that is then programmed in the PSOC chip.
In the final prototype the cuvette is be replaced by a micro-cuvette strip. Using a lancing device, the user draws a few drops of blood and place them inside a micro-cuvette strip which is then inserted into the device. The device then analyses the blood sample using near-infrared spectroscopy and the concentrations of sodium ion, potassium ion, phosphate and creatinine in the blood are determined. Using these concentrations, a regulated weekly report is generated. All this data is then sent to the smartphone and can be viewed using the application. The data is also sent to Azure cloud to make it available across all platforms.
Benefits of the ProjectBenefits of the Project
The three important parameters related to dialysis patient i.e blood sodium level, blood potassium level and blood phosphate level in the body was displayed on the device. Currently, there is no device in the market that can measure the blood electrolytes which imparts to the importance of this project as its results may lead to introduction of a similar device in the market.
End-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients depend on dialysis for removal of toxic waste products, fluid overload relief and maintenance of electrolyte balance. Dialysis prolongs millions of lives. To some extent, ESRD has become a manageable disease with a steadily growing dialysis population of increasing average age and associated comorbidity.
During 7 decades many technical refinements have been developed e.g. sodium profiling, blood volume, ultrafiltration variation based on blood pressure measurement, urea kinetics etc. Despite its large potentials, in-line electrolyte monitoring lags in dialysis treatment.
By using our device patients will have more knowledge and awareness of the extent of electrolyte concentration in their blood is and what they should take in their diet to avoid further contamination before the next dialysis.
The goals of the project are as follows:
- Patients can keep track of their blood contamination level and in parallel follow a restricted diet and as a result will know when to get the next dialysis done. This will help them reduce the number of dialysis sessions per week.
- This will save them both money and pain.
- Using the device, the patients will also be able to consume food of their choice in a controlled quantity.
- Basically, we’re working on the 2 sustainable development goals of reducing in-equality and good health. Our aim is to improve the quality of life of the chronic dialysis patients.
The whole device can be differentiated into 4 different following units:
- Transmitting unit.
- Sensing unit.
- Processing unit.
- Display unit.
The transmitting
This unit is from where we will excite the electrolytes. For the purpose, specific LEDs are used, the specifications and details were mentioned before. The LEDs used in the device are:
- A visible light LED transmitting at a peak wavelength of 595nm
- A Near-Infrared LED transmitting at a peak wavelength of 740nm
- A Near-Infrared LED transmitting at a peak wavelength of 840nm
- A Near-Infrared LED transmitting at a peak wavelength of 850nm
- A Near-Infrared LED transmitting at a peak wavelength of 890nm
- Resistors to drive the LEDs at specific current
The design of the circuit was implemented on Proteus software. Different resistors relate to different LEDs according to the current that each LED requires. The PCB design:
A sensing unit consisting of the photodiode
- FDS010 (200nm – 1100nm)
The following circuit was used to operate the photodiode as per manufacturer recommended and tested for standard operations. The exact same values have been used in the design of the actual receiver circuit as checked initially on breadboard prototype testing. The resistor and capacitor circuit is for filtering the data so as to minimize noise in the readings.
PSOC offers a wide range of components to choose from. We implemented the components in PSOC Creator 3.1 and PSOC 5LP. All the software for our project was implemented in PSOC environment. The post processing of data was initially tested on AZURE machine learning model and then the required regression equation was updated in the PSOC creator and was later burned in the microprocessor.
After implementing the PCB design, we added the electrical components in the circuit for a test run and assembled the circuit.
Display Unit:
The display unit consist of a mobile application made on android studio.
| Item Name | Type | No. of Units | Per Unit Cost (in Rs) | Total (in Rs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total in (Rs) | 73150 | |||
| PSOC | Equipment | 1 | 12850 | 12850 |
| Photodiode and Wavelength specific LEDs | Equipment | 1 | 41400 | 41400 |
| NIR sensor (sparksfun) | Equipment | 1 | 10200 | 10200 |
| Stationary items | Equipment | 1 | 450 | 450 |
| Electronic Components (resistors, capacitors, transistors, leds) | Equipment | 1 | 850 | 850 |
| 3D printed model | Equipment | 1 | 1000 | 1000 |
| Panaflex | Equipment | 2 | 900 | 1800 |
| Distilled Water 5L | Equipment | 1 | 200 | 200 |
| PCB | Equipment | 2 | 200 | 400 |
| travelling | Miscellaneous | 10 | 400 | 4000 |