Team

We are the HydroWatch Team. We are a group of five University of Notre Dame seniors who majored in Electrical Engineering.

A. Burt

M. Etzelmueller

R. Hoehne

T. Lovelace

T. Wang

Thank you so much for exploring our project, please contact us with any questions you may have: hydrowatchupdates@gmail.com
~The HydroWatch Team

Project Details

Motivation:
In order for life to be sustained, water must be present within the body. Humans can only survive for a few days without water, which is required by our organs for operation. When one contains a sufficient amount of water in their tissue, they are considered to be hydrated. Currently there are no noninvasive practical wearable systems that can provide information about hydration levels to a user. An additional issue is that many people wait until they are thirsty to drink water. At that point, however, the body is already dehydrated and has begun to shift water to vital organs. In fact, the general population of people do not know how to assess their own hydration level. Dehydration can lead to numerous health problems and complications including: exhaustion, lack of strength, and rapid heartbeat. We seek to design a device that will inform a user when a drop below an established level of hydration is noted and suggest consumption of water.

Proposed solution:
This device consists of three main subsystems.
1. The first subsystem is the detection of hydration in the body. This detection will be implemented through the use of LEDs to optically measure the amount of water, electrolytes, and other substances present in the tissue, which change based on the hydration of the user. We used four different surface mount LEDs and two Analog Front End (AFE) devices to communicate and measure light absoption within the skin.
2. The second main subsystem is the processing that will be done on the device through a microcontroller and transmission of data via bluetooth
3. The third and final main subsystem is a post processing system that analyzes the LED readings and alerts the user via: a GUI, text, and email.

Results of Project:
The final device was operational and was able to detect changes in hydration have water was drank and had been absorbed by the body. For a complete discussion, please see the final documentaion document in the Document section.
Software Used:
Eclispe
MATLAB
RSL10 Bluetooth Explorer
Python


Final Hardware:
LEDs: 450nm, 660 nm, 970 nm and 1200nm
Microcontroller: RSL10
AFE: AFE4490
Photodiode: Si (visible) and InGaAS (IR)

See "Documents" for related schematics and documentation

Completion date: May 3, 2019

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