International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD)

Volume 3 Issue 5, August 2019 Available Online: www.ijtsrd.com e-ISSN: 2456 – 6470

Internet of Things (IoT) Based Healthcare

Monitoring System using NodeMCU and Arduino UNO
Khin Thet Wai, Nyan Phyo Aung, Lwin Lwin Htay
Department of Electronic Engineering, Technological University, Mandalay, Myanmar

How to cite this paper: Khin Thet Wai | ABSTRACT

Nyan Phyo Aung | Lwin Lwin Htay Today Internet has become one of the important parts of daily life. It has
"Internet of Things (IoT) Based changed how people live, work, play and learn. Internet serves for many
Healthcare Monitoring System using purposes educations, finance, Business, Industries, Entertainment, Social
NodeMCU and Arduino UNO" Published in Networking, etc. The IoT is connected objects to the Internet and used to
International control of those objects or remote monitoring. A health care monitoring
Journal of Trend in system is necessary to constantly monitor the patient’s physiological
Scientific Research parameters. The main advantage of this system is that the results can be
and Development viewed at any time and place. The doctors can be notified by using mobile
(ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456- phones messages if patient health is abnormal. In this system, heartbeat
6470, Volume-3 | sensor, temperature sensor and blood pressure sensor are used. The system
Issue-5, August IJTSRD26482 can analyze the signal to detect normal or abnormal conditions. In the system,
2019, pp.755-759, the internet of things (IoT) is becoming a major platform for many services
https://doi.org/10.31142/ijtsrd26482 and applications. The IoT is generally considered as connecting objects to the
Internet and using that connection for control of those objects or remote
Copyright © 2019 by author(s) and monitoring.
International Journal of Trend in Scientific
Research and Development Journal. This KEYWORDS: Arduino UNO; Blood Pressure Sensor (ASDX 015PGAA5), Heartbeat
is an Open Access article distributed sensor, Internet of Things, NodeMCU, Temperature sensor (DS18B20)
under the terms of I. INTRODUCTION
the Creative Today Internet has become one of the important parts of our daily life. It has
Commons Attribution changed how people live, work, play and learn. Internet serves for many
License (CC BY 4.0) purpose educations, finance, Business, Industries, Entertainment, Social
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by Networking, etc. The IoT is connected objects to the Internet and using that
/4.0) connection for control of those objects or remote monitoring [1].
A health care monitoring system is necessary to constantly II. LITERATURE SURVEY
monitor the patient’s physiological parameters. The main Several comprehensive reviews about the subject of health
advantage of this system is the result can be viewed at any monitoring with wearable sensors have been previously
time and place. The doctors can be notified using mobile presented in the literature. Many such reviews focus on
phones messages if patient health is abnormal. The system giving a global overview of the topic. One of the related
was using both the sensors like heartbeat sensor, approaches was automatic Kmeena Kumari1, et al. discussed
temperature sensor and blood pressure sensor. The system “Health Care System by Monitoring the Patient Health Using
can analyze the signal to detect normal or abnormal IoT and GSM” which was capable of detecting multiple
conditions. [2] parameters of our body such as blood pressure,
temperature, heart rate, ECG& further transmitting this
The blood pressure sensor used to ensure systolic pressure information on an internet of things server through
and diastolic pressure and pulse rate for a few seconds. The 2G/3G/4G GSM technologies.
DS18B20 temperature sensor is used to measure the surface
temperature of the skin. Heartbeat sensor is used to measure The availability of low-cost single-chip microcontrollers and
heartbeat which normally lies between 60-100bpm. Usually, advances in wireless communication technology has
patients with heart diseases live at home and ask for encouraged engineers to design low-cost embedded systems
healthcare service when they feel sick. In addition, most of for healthcare monitoring applications. Such systems have
the patients die before they get any treatment. Therefore, the the ability to process real-time signals generated from
key to improve heart diseases healthcare performance and biosensors and transmit the measured signals through the
reduce the death rate is turning the passive healthcare mode patient's phone to the medical center's server. [3]
into a pervasive way. Therefore, the doctor will decide when
to deliver healthcare service based on patients’ real-time The second is the “IoT-based heart disease monitoring
status. The essential part of this pervasive healthcare mode system for pervasive healthcare service”. In the proposed
is the real-time monitoring system. In this paper, an IoT- paper, a pervasive monitoring system was proposed that
based monitoring system is proposed for pervasive diseases could send a patient’s physical signs to remote medical
healthcare. Satisfactory work is done in health monitoring by applications in real time. The system was mainly composed
using IoT and NodeMCU and Arduino UNO. IoT is the of two parts: the data acquisition part and the data
interconnecting of devices and services that reduce human transmission part. The monitoring scheme (monitoring
intervention to live a better life. [3] parameters and frequency for each parameter) was the key

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 International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470
point of the data acquisition part, and it was designed based The proposed system design is devised into three layers:
on interviews with medical experts. Multiple physical signs Network, gateway, and End-user layers and they are
(blood pressure, ECG, SpO2, heart rate, pulse rate, blood fat explained in the following sections with figure:
and blood glucose), as well as an environmental indicator
(patients’ location), were designed to be sampled at different A. End-user layer
rates continuously. A sample prototype was implemented to This layer includes the end-users (patient and doctor) the
present an overview of the system. This monitoring system first one has wearable device including temperature sensor
fulfilled the basic needs of pervasive healthcare for heart used to read the patient’s temperature and send them
diseases, also took the cost into consideration to ensure the through the other layers to the destination (Doctor) for
pervasive mode as economical as possible. Furthermore, it monitoring the patient status to make decisions. As stated
could also be combined with real-time analysis algorithms to before, the patient’s temperature continuously and
assess patients’ health condition and give warnings to periodically each t seconds configured in the microcontroller
potential attacks in advance, which could make the pervasive software of NodeMCU. The NodeMCU microcontroller board
healthcare more intelligent. But in the paper, the focus was equipped with a low cost Wi-Fi module to enable wireless
based on the monitoring part. Four data transmission modes connection to a nearby gateway Wi-Fi. The interface and
were presented taking patients’ risk, medical analysis needs, programming languages used are the Arduino C language.
demands for communication and computing resources into The Arduino UNO is connected with a blood pressure sensor
consideration. Finally, a sample prototype was implemented to measure a patient’s systolic and diastolic.
to present an overview of the system. [4]
As shown in figure 1, the manager (PC based software) is
The third related work was “Zigbee and GSM based Patient used to display the collected data from the sensor and send
Health Monitoring System”. The focus was based on the them Ubidots to the Cloud to be permanently saved for any
monitoring of patients. The patient monitoring system had future analysis.
been thought of a reliable, energy efficient. It was able to
send parameters of the patient in real time. It enabled the 1. Temperature Sensor (DS18B20)
doctors to monitor patient's health parameters The core functionality of DS18B20 is it’s direct to the digital
(temperature, heartbeat, ECG) in real time. Here these temperature sensor. It is the ability to operate without an
parameters of the patient were measured continuously and external power supply. The DS18B20 powers up in a low
wirelessly transmitted using Zigbee. In the currently power idle state. The normal body temperature is about 37°
proposed system, the patient health was continuously C or 98.6 ° F. However, it can be as low as 36.1° C (97°F) in
monitored and the acquired data were analyzed at a the early morning and as high as 37.2° C (99° F). The
centralized ARDUINO. If a particular patient's health advantages of a digital temperature sensor are principal with
parameter fell below the threshold value, an automated SMS its precision output. As the sensor outputs a calibrated
was sent to the pre-configured Doctor's mobile using a digital reading, the output is an exact temperature in degrees
standard GSM module interfaced to the ARDUINO. Here, the Celsius. This means no other components, such as an analog
system was using Zigbee for wireless transmission. The to digital converter, are required within the electronic circuit
Doctor could get a record of a particular patient's to calibrate or amplify the signal.
information by just accessing the database of the patient on
his PC, which is continuously updated through Zigbee
receiver module. In the proposed system, patient’s
parameters such as ECG, Temperature and Heart Beat would
be continuously transmitted and monitored through
wireless technology Zigbee. The system was convenient and
efficient in nature and had no influence on patients' daily life,
so it increased interaction between patient and doctor,
which made surveillance had real instantaneity. In addition,
it ultimately prevented heart disease and avoided
unexpected tragedy practically. [5]

III. THE PROPOSED SYSTEM

Figure.2 Temperature sensor (DS18B20)[6 Mau]

2. NodeMCU
NodeMCU is similar microcontroller and it can be configured
to connect to the Internet for the Internet of things (IoT). The
NodeMCU development board is an open-source board
based on Esp8266 microcontroller with integrated Wi Fi
transceiver. NodeMCU is a complete environment of
hardware and software for IoT.

Figure1. Proposed System of (IoT) Based Healthcare

Monitoring System

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 International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470
AD8232 is an integrated front end, suitable for monitoring
heart rate through had jousting bioelectricity signal of the
heart. It aims at monitoring different vital signals and is an
analogy front end of heart rate monitor, featuring low power
consumption and single lead. Heartbeat sensor is used to
measure heartbeat which normally lies between 60-100bpm.
Heart rate is the speed of the heartbeat measured by the
number of contractions of the heart per minute.

5. Arduino UNO
The Arduino Uno is a microcontroller board based on the
ATmega328 (datasheet). It has 14 digital input/output pins
(of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, a
Figure.3 NodeMCU [7 Hwe] 16 MHz crystal oscillator, a USB connection, a power jack, an
ICSP header, and a reset button. It contains everything
3. Blood Pressure sensor (ASDXAD015PGAA5) needed to support the microcontroller; simply connects it to
While measuring blood pressure levels, there are two a computer with a USB cable or power it with an AC-to-DC
different values always in pairs known as the systolic and adapter or battery to get started.
diastolic blood pressure. Measured commonly in millimeters
of mercury (mmHg), these contain the systolic pressure on
the upper value followed by the diastolic pressure on the
lower value. The doctor measures the maximum pressure
(systolic) and the lowest pressure (diastolic) made by the
beating of the heart. Both systolic and diastolic pressure
measurements are important-if either one is raised, it means
body has high blood pressure (hypertension).

Figure.6 Heartbeat sensor (AD8232) [9 Sha]

B. Gateway layer
The gateway layer is a router-based network, which routes
the traffic coming from the microcontroller to the required
Cloud. It is evident that when public Cloud is used then this
layer might contain single or multiple hops, and in the
proposed model, it is fixed to a single router.

Figure.4 Blood Pressure sensor (ASDXAD015PGAA5) C. Network Layer

[8 Hon] The Network layer is used for storing the sensor data using
Ubidots and allow users 'doctor or patient' to access
The optimal blood pressure reading is 120/80mm Hg, for remotely or even to mentoring the patient state from any
enjoying good health. This reading lowers the risk of stroke, available device. The monitoring is done using a smart phone
cardiovascular and renal diseases. This is the ideal blood connected wirelessly to the Ubidots using a wireless router.
pressure for people wishing to have good health. At this
level, the human has a much lower risk of heart disease or IV. Hardware and Software Implementation
stroke.

4. Heartbeat sensor (AD8232)

Figure.5 Heartbeat sensor (AD8232) [9 Sha] Fig. 7 Hardware implementation of the proposed system

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 International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470
Hardware implementation of the proposed system is shown
in figure 7. The main component of this circuit is NodeMCU,
temperature sensor, heartbeat sensor, blood pressure
sensor, Arduino UNO and power bank. This NodeMCU is
supplied with dc power. Heartbeat and temperature sensors
are connected to the NodeMCU. And the blood pressure
sensor is connected to the Arduino UNO, and then the
acquired data connect to the NodeMCU. In NodeMCU, it is
needed to store the three sensors data. These data are
transmitted to the gateway and IoT. Ubidots application is
used in the IoT because it displays the received data. Finally,
the doctor easy to use the PC for monitoring.

Fig. 8,9 show the software development of the system. When

the system is started, it will first check the Wi-Fi & internet
connection. After it checks, data in Ubidots are received. And
then these data collection and display the device and
variable.

Figure.9 Flow Chart of the blood pressure

V. Simulation Results
After hardware and software implementation of the system,
results are obtained and can be visualized on the Internet
created on Ubidots. Figure.10, the temperature is not
received in Ubidots cloud. This application is the best
connect for the Internet of Things(IoT). Ubidots offers a
platform for developers that enables them to easily capture
sensor data and turn it into useful information. Use the
Ubdiots platform to send data to the cloud from any internet-
enabled device.

Figure.11 shows the chart of temperature data in Ubidots

server and NodeMCU display. The result of this research is
successfully obtained the body temperature of the patient.
While the body is measured by a DS18B20 sensor, the
temperature result arrives on the NodeMCU and then, these
Figure.8 Flow Chart of the heartbeat and temperature data are reached Ubidots server in real time as shown in the
figure. 11.

Figure.10 Ubidots cloud

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 International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470
Temperature and heartbeat sensors are connected to
NodeMCU and then the data is sent to the Ubidots clouds. By
comparing the results of the heartbeat sensor (AD8232) and
watch sensor, it can be seen that the result value of the
AD8232 sensor is a little more. To be concluded, therefore, it
can be said that the AD8232 sensor is more save than watch
sensor. The blood pressure sensor is connected with Arduino
Uno and then the data is sent to the Rx pin of NodeMCU from
Tx pin of Arduino Uno. After that BP data from NodeMCU is
sent to the cloud of Ubidots. However, systolic can only be
sent to Ubidots and so it is the drawback of Ubidots. It is
needed to install a cloud application in the doctor’s phone
handset in order to check easily the incoming data.
Figure.11 The chart of temperature data Acknowledgment
This work is done with my candidate, Mg Nyan Phyo Aung.
The authors would like to thank Dr. Lwin Lwin Htay
Department of Electronic Engineering, Technological
University (Mandalay) for kindly preparing for this paper.

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