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Rapid prototyping of neonatal jaundice detector using skin optics theory

Conference Paper · December 2014

DOI: 10.1109/IECBES.2014.7047514

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 2014 IEEE Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, 8 - 10 December 2014, Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia
Rapid Prototyping of Neonatal Jaundice Detector
Using Skin Optics Theory
Zulfadhli Osman, Afandi Ahmad-IEEE Member and Azlan Muharam-IEEE Student Member
Abstract— When newborns present with jaundice, various
clinical assessment need to be executed including evaluation of
the history, physical examination, and assessment of severity of
jaundice. This project concerns with the quantification of
neonatal jaundice level using Simulink model-based design. It is
important to address that the proposed method is non-invasive,
hence suitable for infants. In this project, the concentration level
of bilirubin in dermis layer of skin has been detected using skin
optic theory with light emitting diode (LED) and photodiode as
a detector. To evaluate the proposed system, a mock skin
soaking is used to replace the real infant’s skin. At the system
level, Arduino Uno has been used as a hardware platform,
whilst MATLAB and Simulink have been fully utilised to
implement the system’s architecture. An evaluation of the
proposed systems reveals its capability to detect, process and
display real-time results with three (3) levels of jaundice,
including normal, mild and critical.
Index Terms— Bilirubin, Jaundice
I. INTRODUCTION
New born baby or infant have high risk to face health
problems. This is due to the organs and metabolism just
started to develop. One of common health problem synonym
with infants is jaundice, which the condition of excessive
bilirubin serum in blood stream with the peak bilirubin levels
occurring on day five (5) of life [1], [2]. This condition
appears because there is a problem with the immature infant’s
liver [3], [4]. Too high number of bilirubin pigment or
hyperbilirubinemia can brought to neurological disorder,
irreparable neurologic dysfunction and even death [5].
To diagnose jaundice, most hospitals in Malaysia using
invasive method, by taking a specific amount of infant’s
blood and test it in the laboratory. This procedure may give
trauma to infant; hence it is not an easy job and has risk of
This work was supported in part by Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia
(UTHM). Software used in this project was sponsored by Mathworks for
Innovate Malaysia Design Competition 2014.
*Z. Osman is with Bioelectronics and Instrumentation Research
Laboratory (BioEI), Microelectronic and Nanotechnology Shamsuddin
Research centre (MiNTS-SRC), Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia
(UTHM), P. O. Box 101, 86400 Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia.
(e-mail: zulfadhliosman911@gmail.com)
A. Ahmad is a leturer at Department of Computer Engineering, Faculty of
Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn
Malaysia (UTHM), P. O. Box 101, 86400 Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia.
(e-mail: afandia@uthm.edu.my)
A. Muharam is with the VLSI Architecture and Systems Design Research
Laboratory, Microelectronic and Nanotechnology Shamsudin Research
Centre (MINT-SRC), Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) Beg
Berkunci 101 Parit Raja Batu Pahat Johor 86400, (corresponding author
provide phone: 010-4002649; e-mail: azlan.muharam.my@ieee.org).
978-1-4799-4084-4/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE 328
blood loss [6]. Furthermore, it makes the infant’s skin become
sore because bilirubin serum needs to monitor at frequent
interval.
Therefore, there is a need for non-invasive method needs to
quantify the level of jaundice. It is also suggested by the
Neonatal Institute of Child Health and Human Development
to have a system for bilirubin fraction measurement which
deposits in skin and contribute to jaundice [5].
To portray the importance of this research, literature
reviews show that this topic is still immature and further
research needs to be executed. Hamza et al. [5] used
semiconductor diode laser and diode pumped solid-state
lasers laser diodes with 532 and 457 nm, respectively as light
sources which directed to infant’s skin, then the light
reflected back and absorbed by photodetector. The used of
diode laser is considered less economics for prototyping
development and also harmful for infant’s skin.
In [7], infrared (IR) has been used to absorbed the light
from light emitting diode (LED) that pass through a yellow
liquid with different concentration. Two (2) specific LEDs
with wavelength of 455 and 575 nm have been used by
Kudavalley et al. [8] to measure bilirubin concentration in
blood samples. The wavelengths were processed by National
Instrument (NI) data acquisition (DAQ) card which located in
the opposite side.
On the other hand, Mansor et al. [9] propose a monitoring
system for jaundice using colour detection method. With
digital camera and MATLAB software, bilirubin level on the
skin has been detected based on different skin’s colour and it
is considered a software-based implementation, hence very
time consuming process.
This research attempts to propose a hardware-based system
to quantify jaundice level using artificial bilirubin standard
solution (ABSS) [10] that has been widely practiced in
laboratory technology. The ultimate aim of this research is to
develop a low-cost, accurate, and non-invasive
hardware-based system.
The remainder of this paper is organised as follows.
Section II describes about the experimental setup, systems
architecture and its implementation. Experimental results and
analysis are described in Section III. Finally, concluding
remarks are given in Section IV.
 2014 IEEE Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, 8 - 10 December 2014, Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Fig. 3: Bilirubin detection systems. Part 1: ADC. Part 2: Bilirubin concentration calculation. Part 3: Output decision system

I. METHODS

The general goal of this research is concerned with the design Inc has spectral responsivity in range of 300 to 1100 nm with
and implementation of jaundice level quantification systems, peak irradiation responsivity at 470 nm.
with more emphasis on skin optic theory. In this research,
there were four (4) phases of work packages have been
realised as follows: basic experimental setup, initial data
analysis, development of the detection systems, circuit design
and prototyping of the systems.

A. Basic Experimental Setup

In this experiment, sprague-dawley (SD) rats’s skin with
eight (8) weeks old (male) based on skin soaking method has
been used. It is worth noting that the SD rat is considered
reasonable and practical to predict human skin permeability
[11]. SD rats’ skin was then being carefully shaved and
soaked in ABSS for three (3) minutes with ten different
concentrations that have been prepared earlier. In preparing
the ABSS [10], the following guidelines have been followed:
Fig. 1. Basic experimental setup
B. Initial Data Analysis
Based on experiment conducted, the voltmeter identified
changes in voltages value when different mock skin with
different ABSS was tested. Fig 2 that has been plotted using
MATLAB illustrates the relationship between these two (2)
parameters, ABSS concentration and voltage.

To fully utilised the functionality of MATLAB, this graph

Materials
has applied the best fitting curve and the following equation
1) Methyl red powder
has been automatically generated.
Manufacturer: Denver-hill Chemicals

2) Acetic Acid
y = −42.776 * x + 88.197 (1)
Manufacturer: Bendosen
Molar : 60.05g/mol

To prepare a 10mg/dL of ABSS, 10 milligrams (mg) of

ABSS Concentration

methyl red powder with 1 dL of acetic acids have been

mixed. With the experimental setup as depicted in Fig. 1,
gallium nitride (GaN) type bright blue LED (455 nm),
manufactured by Kingbright Electronic Co. and a
high-sensitivity low-noise light-to-voltage optical converter
(TSL257), which combines photodiode and transimpedance
amplifier on a single monolithic complementary metal oxide
Voltage (V)
semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuit is used to obtain
voltage range of light reflectance from mock skin. The Fig. 2. Relationship between the ABSS concentration with output voltage
from photodiode.
photodiode manufactured by Texas Advanced Optoelectronic
Solution

329
 2014 IEEE Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, 8 - 10 December 2014, Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia

C. Detection System

To develop the detection systems, three (3) sub-blocks

have been designed as shown in Fig. 3. For the first part, it
acts as an analog to digital converter (ADC) system. Pin A4 Power
of Arduino Uno was assigned as an analog input terminal.
The analog voltage is converted to digital data using ADC USB Cable
equation as follows:

ADC Equation = analog voltage value * 0.0049 (1)

LED

Then, the converted digital data has been passed through

‘IF Block’ to limit the system decision. If any data less than
value of 1.4, it was then considered as a constant value of 1.4. LCD
Whilst for any value greater than 2, are considered to be a
constant value of 2. These limits value depends on maximum
and minimum voltage value from graph shown in Fig. 2. Black box

From Part 1, then data will be sent to Part 2 that performs

the calculation of bilirubin concentration based on Eq. (1).
Finally, in Part 3 the bilirubin value has been sent through ‘IF
Fig. 5. Prototype of the system.
Block’ for display purposes. The output of particular bilirubin
value is assigned as digital output value (High = 1) for next
stage operation. Table I shows the output terminal decision of II. RESULT & DISCUSSION
Arduino Uno to display the results.
To verify that the proposed biological sample (SD rats’ skin)
TABLE I
OUTPUT TERMINAL PIN ASSIGNMENT AND BILIRUBIN CONCENTRATION attributes are almost similar to the various level of jaundice,
several validation processes have been taken placed. The first
Number of two (2) processes were related with validation of the samples
Bilirubin concentration (mg/dL)
Arduino Uno Pin that have been prepared, whilst the rest were about the
Concentration ≤ 10 9 functionality of the proposed prototype.
10 < Concentration ≤ 20 10
Concentration > 20 11
A. Spectrophotometer Test
D. Circuit Design & Systems Prototyping The ABSS solutions were tested using spectrophotometer
In this research, the bilirubin detection system begins with (Shimadzu: UV-1800). The aim of the test is to observe the
the projection of blue light from LED to the mock skin in the wavelength of ABSS and the results are illustrated in Fig. 6.
black box. The reflected light from mock skins gives It appears that the ABSS solutions have great absorbance at
particular voltage value at photodiode. Then, the voltage the range of 400 to 550 nm. Hence, it is proved that the
value has been sent to and processed by the Arduino Uno to solutions are significant to be used throughout this research
determine its bilirubin concentration. due to the range of wavelength peak absorption similar to the
real bilirubin serum.
After that, the digital signal from the Arduino Uno has
been passed to the microcontroller (PIC 16F877A). At this
stage, the digital signal being processed to display the level of
bilirubin and the LED will shows its response. An overview
for the overall bilirubin detection system is given in Fig. 4.
Meanwhile, the prototype of this research is shown in Fig. 5.
PIC 16F877A

LCD

LED Photodiode Arduino

Uno
LED
Black box

Light path Fig. 6. Absorbance and wavelength of ABSS with different concentrations.
Mock skin

Fig. 4. Overall bilirubin detection system. B. Laboratory Test

330
 2014 IEEE Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, 8 - 10 December 2014, Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia
To measure the bilirubin serum concentration invasively,
the ABSS was then being tested using bilirubin meter
(Cosmedi: Bil-100). It is noted that if the solution’s accuracy
less than 95%, then the solution need to be re-prepared. This
is due to the ultimate aim of this test which is to prepare the
most accurate concentration of ABSS solution based on
desired value.
C. Bilirubin Detection System
Based on Fig. 2 in Section II, the output voltages from
photodiode were varies with ABSS concentration. The
voltage values for 10 samples of ABSS concentration have
been taken five (5) times for data accuracy. It is always noted
that the expected range of responsivity for bilirubin serum lies
between 400 to 500 nm.
Thus, it is expected that the higher concentration of ABBS,
the lower the light intensity reflected back to environment
which brought to the lower of voltage output from
photodiode. In brief, the output voltage of photodiode is
directly proportional to light intensity [12]. It shows that, the
capability of the photodiode used in this research to quantify
the jaundice level in the form of light intensity and gives
particular voltage output.
The output voltage value was then being processed in the
Arduino Uno to determine its bilirubin concentration and
later the value has been sent to the microcontroller. At this
stage, the digital signal was being processed to display the
level of jaundice and LEDs will appear according to its level.
Three (3) levels of jaundice, which are normal, mild and
critical, will be displayed on the display part. A summary of
voltage range from photodiode output and jaundice level
displayed on liquid crystal display (LCD) of the prototype are
tabulated in Table II.
TABLE II
SUMMARY OF RESULTS FOR JAUNDICE LEVEL QUANTIFICATION
ABBS concentration Voltage range LED Jaundice
(mg/dL) (volts) colour level
Concentration ≤ 10 2.06 – 1.83 Green Normal
10 < Concentration ≤ 20 1.82 – 1.62 Yellow Mild
Concentration > 20 1.61 – 0.00 Red Critical
It is worth mentioning that after the Arduino Uno has been
successfully process the voltage range, only one (1) signal of
active high ‘1’ was generated at one (1) time, either at pin 9,
10 or 11 of Arduino Uno digital output terminal. The digital
signal was then being manipulated by the microcontroller and
the system architecture in microcontroller has been designed
using Flowcode software: a programming method based on
flowchart. In terms of user’s functionality, the proposed
prototype also has its reset button to reset the entire system for
different quantification process.
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331
III. CONCLUSION
This research has explored the potentiality combination of
biomedical and electronic engineering in solving medical
problem. To date, the more widespread of these combinations
contributes for better societal impact. Throughout this
research, rapid prototyping of neonatal jaundice detector
using skin optic theory has been successfully proposed. It is
also proved that Simulink software were able to communicate
with Arduino Uno and process the jaundice level. It is also
important to address that the proposed prototype was
non-invasive, hence relevant for new born baby.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank to the Innovates Malaysia
and Dr Azizan Aziz, a pediatric specialist at Hospital
Sultanah Nora Ismail (HSNI), Batu Pahat for supporting this
research work.
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