Neonatal Incubator IoT Vital Monitoring System

Problem statement

Premature and critically ill newborns often require incubator care, where temperature, humidity and vital signs must be tightly controlled. In busy neonatal ICUs, nurses may not always be able to continuously monitor every incubator. A real-time IoT-based monitoring and alerting solution can improve safety and response time.

Abstract

This project develops an IoT-enabled incubator monitoring system that tracks vital parameters such as body temperature and movement as well as incubator environmental conditions including air temperature, humidity and oxygen level (optional). Sensors send data to a microcontroller which forwards it to a central dashboard over Wi-Fi. If any parameter goes outside safe ranges, alarms are triggered at the incubator and notifications are sent to nurses’ stations or mobile apps. Historical trends can also be visualized for clinical analysis.

Components required

• Microcontroller (ESP32 / ESP8266)
• Body temperature sensor (skin/contact sensor or patch)
• Ambient temperature and humidity sensor (DHT22 / SHT31)
• Optional oxygen / CO₂ sensor module
• Buzzer and indicator LEDs
• Wi-Fi networking
• Local or cloud dashboard for nurses (web or app)

Block diagram

Working

Sensors attached to or placed near the infant and inside the incubator periodically measure vitals and environmental conditions. The ESP32 reads these values, checks them against predefined safety thresholds and publishes them to a central server or MQTT broker over Wi-Fi. A dashboard running on a PC or tablet displays all incubators and highlights any unit with abnormal readings. If limits are crossed, the system triggers a local buzzer at the incubator and sends a notification to the nursing station or mobile devices.

Applications

• Neonatal intensive care units (NICU)
• Pediatric hospitals and clinics
• Research prototypes for smart incubators
• Training tools for biomedical and IoT engineering