In this work, a literature survey is carried out by considering the published studies addressing the identification and control of the dynamics involving temperature and humidity in neonatal incubators. Considering that it is necessary to turn off the incubator to run the tests and, also, that the number of available incubators in neonatal centers is limited in most Brazilian hospitals, a maintenance strategy that minimizes the incubator down time will prove to be very useful. In order to perform the aforementioned tests, the incubator is removed from service, and a calibration system is installed, so that temperature and humidity data are provided for a standardized calibration procedure. Such specifications are verified by performing several tests, including the application of input signals to the temperature, humidity and air flow actuators, with the aim of analyzing the behavior of the aforementioned variables at specific points inside the incubator. The technical standard IEC 6 establishes operating specifications for neonatal incubators, so that a safe environment can be offered for newborns. Īs with any other electro-medical equipment, a neonatal incubator must be calibrated periodically, because its malfunction may cause serious damage to the newborn's health or even lead to the newborn's death. The incubator provides an adequate microclimate, so that newborn infants can overcome the first occurrences of diseases, and it also controls skin temperature and the relative humidity. Within this period of early life, the incubators are fundamental tools for reducing the risk of mortality and diseases. For every 1,000 Brazilian children born in 2010, about 8.7 individuals died in the first week of life, while 2.6 individuals died between the seventh and 27th day of life, according to the Brazilian Ministry of Health. Ī neonatal incubator is one of the most important pieces of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) equipment. A neonatal incubator must be seen as a thermoneutral environment, which provides favorable conditions that assure the minimum energy expenditure of the newborn while body temperature is within a safe range. Within this context, a neonatal incubator helps in taking care of the health of newborns. Newborns with health complications and premature birth have great difficulty in regulating their body temperature because of various reasons, such as a high metabolism rate caused by the conditions of an illness, low birth weight and a high rate of surface to body volume, which causes a high amount of energy per kilogram to be lost when compared to an adult. Experimental tests involving the aforementioned calibration system are carried out in a commercial incubator in order to validate the proposal. Since the sensors used in the new calibration process are already installed in the commercial incubator, no additional hardware is necessary and the calibration necessity can be diagnosed in real time without the presence of technical professionals in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The proposal presents significant advantages over the standard calibration process, i.e., the number of sensors is drastically reduced, and it runs with the incubator under operation. This paper proposes a new procedure based on an inferential neural network to evaluate and calibrate a neonatal incubator. The technical standard IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) 6 establishes requirements for neonatal incubators and specifies the calibration procedure and validation tests for such devices using sensors systems. Measurement and diagnostic systems based on electronic sensors have been increasingly essential in the standardization of hospital equipment.
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