Design of a Wearable Alcohol Blood Level Monitoring Device

Undergraduate #356
Discipline: Technology and Engineering
Subcategory: Electrical Engineering

Dylan MaGowan - University of the District of Columbia
Co-Author(s): Tam Le and Sasan Haghani, University of the District of Columbia, Washington, DC

---

Over consumption of alcohol kills thousands of people every year. Many deaths could be prevented if the people were better informed and were assisted in finding aid when impaired. New developments in smart phone, battery, and sensor technology have made it possible to design a wearable device that will monitor a person’s blood alcohol level, and wirelessly transfer that data to a smart phone. The phone will use a custom application to intelligently use that data to assist and advise the user. In this project, we report on the design of a wearable alcohol blood level monitoring device. This project is comprised of two major parts. First, the development of a wireless wearable system that will sense the user’s blood alcohol level is presented. This device is comprised of an infrared micro optic sensor that can monitor the blood alcohol level non-invasively, a wireless transmitter, and a micro-controller. A small screen or LED is used for easy feedback without the smart phone. Second, the development of an application, designed to provide a graphical user interface for the designed system is presented. Using the smart phone’s processing power, the data can be logged and processed. The mobile application can calculate projected intoxication levels over time, send warnings to the user and friends, and even send for help in case of extreme readings.

Funder Acknowledgement(s): This study was supported, in part, by a grant from NSF award HRD1435947 awarded to Sasan Haghani, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of the District of Columbia, Washington, DC, 20008.

Faculty Advisor: Sasan Haghani, shaghani@udc.edu