Project
# | Title | Team Members | TA | Documents | Sponsor |
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66 | Automatic pill dispenser |
Qingyu Li Shengyu Ge Wennan Zhai |
Chi Zhang | design_document1.pdf design_document2.pdf design_document3.pdf design_document4.pdf design_document5.pdf design_document8.pdf design_document9.pdf design_document10.pdf design_document11.pdf design_document12.pdf final_paper1.pdf proposal2.pdf proposal1.pdf |
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**This project is pitched by Jinal Shah.** Team: Qingyu Li (qingyul2), Wennan Zhai (wennanz2), Shengyu Ge(shengyu3) # PROBLEM Taking medications as instructed and punctually can be a hard task for patients who need many kinds of pills, especially for senior people with memory problems. Given the number of different types of medicine, it is often difficult and troublesome for the patients to keep track of the correct dose and consumption time for each medicine. It is also very common that many old people need reminders or notifications to remind them of taking the pills. Smartphone alarms can be helpful in this situation but many people don’t use or are not good at smartphones. # SOLUTION OVERVIEW We want to design an automatic pill dispenser that can alert the user to take medicine on time and automatically dispense the correct type and dose of the pills. It will also show the instructions for those pills on a screen. To make the dispenser user-friendly, we plan to develop a mobile application for registering/keeping the information of the medicines and setting dose and time. It can also set off alarms at the set time. Ideally, there will be different profiles for different users for easier family usage. The dispenser will work in the following steps: 1. The user puts different types of pills into unique containers in the dispenser and registers the medicine information such as pill name, dose and time to take, expiration date, etc. in the mobile app. 2. The dispenser will keep track of time (with a real-time clock) and medical information. At the set time, it will automatically choose the correct types and numbers of pills via the instructions previously set, put them into the tray and display the instructions on the screen. An alarm will set off both at the dispenser and on the phone/smart home devices. 3. At other situations such as medicine expired or needs a refill, the dispenser will display a notification and alert the users on their phones. # SOLUTION COMPONENTS - Subsystem1: Mechanical system The mechanical system will be designed by a Mechanical engineering senior design team and the dispenser itself would include motors and gears for dispensing pills. This mechanical system will eventually be integrated with the software and hardware we develop to perform the functionality. - Subsystem2: Electrical dispenser control/notification system The control system will be responsible for choosing correct containers/pill numbers, displaying notifications and generating correct signals for the mechanical system. The dispenser is designed to be used at home not portable so an external ac/dc adapter will suffice. - Subsystem3: Bluetooth/WIFI connection system There will be a Bluetooth/WIFI module inside the dispenser that can communicate with the mobile app. - Subsystem4: Mobile app The mobile app should be simple and easy to use. It needs to properly connect and send medicine information to the dispenser after the user setup. Will add Alexa/Google Home support if possible. # CRITERION FOR SUCCESS It will dispense the right pills at the right time via the instructions set by users. Notifications and instructions will show up on the screen and mobile app. |