Temperature Monitoring System for Pharmaceutical Industries

Introduction

Pharmaceutical products require close temperature control & monitoring to comply with industry regulations and pharmaceutical safety guidelines. Pharmaceutical and Healthcare industries are required to deliver high-quality products to their patients. The storage or these products and medicines is a key priority, so that they can ensure the product is safe for use, stable and provide the intended efficacy of this product/treatment. A range of regulatory temperature ranges need to meet the requirements of the regulator like Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) & Intelligent Medical Objects (IMO). This is important for pharmaceutical companies to ensure they are assisting in Safeguarding public health and minimizing potential risks that exist with products that are not correctly stored. Some temperature limits for storage areas of Pharmaceutical Industries are given in table.1.

For temperature monitoring, the Temperature sensor LM35 is kept in those areas where there is a need of keeping temperature within range. As due to any means like power cutoff or any damage in system, the temperature of the storage areas crossed its threshold value, the cloud server activates the communication platform and will send the alert message to the respective person on his mobile number with the value of temperature. So as the person receives the message, he will do the needful things to get temperature back to its range.

1. Methodology

1.1. Hardware requirement

A. LM35 temperature sensor

LM35 is a temperature measuring device having an analog output voltage proportional to the temperature. It provides output voltage in Centigrade (Celsius). It does not require any external calibration circuitry. The sensitivity of LM35 is 10 mV/degree Celsius. As temperature increases, output voltage also increases.E.g. 250 mV means 25°C. It is a 3-terminal sensor used to measure surrounding temperature ranging from -55 °C to 150 °C. LM35 gives temperature output which is more precise than thermistor output. Fig.1.1.1. gives the internal circuit and pin details of LM35.

B. Bolt WiFi Module

An easy interface to quickly connect your hardware to cloud over GPIO, UART, and ADC. Also, connects to MODBUS, I2C, and SPI with an additional converter. The image of Bolt WiFi module is shown in the Fig.1.1.2. and its architecture is shown in Fig.1.1.3.

It is used to get the input signals from different sensor. For this project the temperature sensor is connected to it. It requires a power supply of 5 V which is given with the help of USB cable which is connected to laptops or with power supply or with power banks.

C. Miscellaneous

The jumper cables male to female to connect the LM35 temperature sensor with the Bolt IOT module. Wifi or Hotspot network to connect the bolt Wifi module to the Bolt Cloud.

1.2. Software requirement

A.Cloud computing

Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage and computing power, without direct active management by the user. The term is generally used to describe data centers available to many users over the Internet. Large clouds, predominant today, often have functions distributed over multiple locations from central servers. If the connection to the user is relatively close, it may be designated an edge server. A cloud server is a virtual server (rather than a physical server) running in a cloud computing environment. It is built, hosted and delivered via a cloud computing platform via the internet, and can be accessed remotely. They are also known as virtual servers. Cloud servers have all the software they require to run and can function as independent units. The basic information about cloud computing is shown in Fig.1.2.1. The cloud is commonly used to refer to several servers connected to the internet that can be leased as part of a software or application service. Cloud-based services can include web hosting, data hosting and sharing, and software or application use.‘The cloud’ can also refer to cloud computing, where several servers are linked together to share the load. This means that instead of using one single powerful machine, complex processes can be distributed across multiple smaller computers.One of the advantages of cloud storage is that there are many distributed resources acting as one – often called federated storage clouds. This makes the cloud very tolerant of faults, due to the distribution of data. Use of the cloud tends to reduce the creation of different versions of files, due to shared access to documents, files and data.

A cloud server gives the business user stability and security because any software problems are isolated from your environment. Other cloud servers won’t impact on your cloud server and vice versa. If another user overloads their cloud server, this will have no impact on your cloud server, unlike with physical servers. Cloud servers are stable, fast and secure. They avoid the hardware issues seen with physical servers, and they are likely to be the most stable option for businesses wanting to keep their IT budget down.Cloud servers provide a faster service for your money. You’ll get more resources and a faster service than you would for a similar price of physical server. A cloud-hosted website will run faster.You get scalability with cloud servers. It is very easy and quick to upgrade by adding memory and disk space, as well as being more affordable. In this project, with the help of digital ocean platform the virtual Ubuntu linux operating system is created. With the help of SSH and SSH passkey, the cloud server of digital ocean is used in this project. Secure Shell (SSH) is a cryptographic network protocol for operating network services securely over an unsecured network. Typical applications include remote command-line, login, and remote command execution, but any network service can be secured with SSH. SSH provides a secure channel over an unsecured network by using a client–server architecture, connecting an SSH client application with an SSH server. This operating system is work as cloud. This operating system can operated from regular windows with the help of 3rd party application named PuTTY. The coding language used for cloud server is Python. The python code is created in this cloud and stored there. When anyone wants to monitor any storage system for temperature, this code is executed. As per the code temperature monitoring is done.

B. Bolt Cloud

The Bolt Cloud is one of the major component in providing the IoT capabilities to the Bolt device. The communication of Bolt devices with Bolt Cloud happens over the MQTT communication protocol. MQTT stands for Message Queue Telemetry Transport. HTTP & HTTPS protocols are so popular and widely used for communication. Although these protocols are popular, the amount of overhead data that is sent over the Internet for managing the communication is quite a lot. Overhead data is the data which is sent along with the actual message/data which conveys the extra information required to understand the message/data sent. The overhead data varies from protocol to protocol. This is fine in case of systems such as mobile phones, laptops, desktop computes that have the hardware capabilities and the network capabilities to send the extra overhead data.Most IoT devices and sensors contain limited processing capabilities and constrained Internet bandwidth. Due to these limitations, they send data over the Internet only when required and the data sent is very low in terms of bandwidth usage. Hence using protocols such as HTTP, HTTPS does not become feasible where the overhead data is more than the actual data itself. MQTT contains very low overhead and hence becomes ideal for IoT communication.

MQTT is a pub-sub messaging protocol. Pub refers to publishing and sub refers to subscribing. There is a central entity, in our case it is the Bolt Cloud. All the Bolt devices connect to the Bolt Cloud and send the data to various channels by publishing the data on their unique channels. The Bolt devise also subscribe to channels so that they can receive commands coming from the Bolt users. The Bolt Cloud users communicate with the Bolt Cloud using the HTTPS communication protocol. Bolt Cloud receives all the commands to control or request for sensor data from Bolt devices, and sends the commands to the Bolt device. The Bolt device executes the commands, and sends a response back to the Bolt Cloud which in turn forwards it to the user who initiated the command.

C. PuTTY software

PuTTY is a free and open-source terminal emulator, serial console and network file transfer application. It supports several network protocols, including SCP, SSH, Telnet, r login, and raw socket connection. It can also connect to a serial port. Fig.1.2.3 (a) shows the PuTTY configuration and Fig.1.2.3 (b) shows user ineterface of root Ubuntu cloud server.

D. Cloud Communication platform as a Service (CPaaS)

CPaaS stands for Communications Platform as a Service. It is a cloud technology that allows you to integrate real-time communications into your existing business applications without complex engineering. Whatever your business or size. CPaaS bridges communications between humans, objects and processes, enabling faster, easier, more secure digital engagement for your business. CPaaS allows you to interact with your Customers their way as shown in Fig.1.2.4.

For communicating from cloud to respective mobile number, the third party application called as Twilio is used. Twilio is a CPaaS company based in San Francisco, California. Twilio allows software developers to programmatically make and receive phone calls, send and receive text messages, and perform other communication functions using its web service APIs. When storage system temperature crossed the threshold limits, with the help of Twilio number the respective alert message will be send to concern person.

2. Hardware configuration and Simulation Results

2.1 Hardware configuration for temperature Monitoring

The main part of Hardware is Bolt IOT WiFi module which is the processor for this temperature monitoring system. The Fig.2.1.1 (a) shows the details of the how to connect the LM35 temperature for sensing basic and full range temperature. The Fig.2.1.1 (b) shows the pin configuration of the Bolt WiFi module and the Fig.2.1.2 shows how to connect the temperature sensor LM35 to Bolt WiFi module.

The Fig In the above image, VCC is connected to the red wire, Output is connected to the orange wire and GND is connected to the brown wire. Using male to female wire connect the 3 pins of the LM35 to the Bolt WiFi Module as follows:

 VCC pin of the LM35 connects to 5 V of the Bolt WiFi module.

 Output pin of the LM35 connects to A0 (Analog input pin) of the Bolt WiFi module.

 GND pin of the LM35 connects to the GND

2.2 Simulation and results for temperature monitoring system

After finishing the hardware connection setup, it is kept inside the storage system which is monitored for temperature. Using Bolt cloud and Digital Ocean’s virtual cloud server, the temperature of pharmaceutical storage system will be monitored continuously. The data analytics is used in Bolt cloud to plot the graph for the temperature readings. The Line graph is plotted for temperature reading as shown in Fig.2.2.1. LM35 gives the voltage reading to convert voltage into Celsius, use below equation.

T = R/10.24

Where, T = temperature of storage area in Degree Celsius (°C),

& R = Analog Pin output i.e. voltage in V.

Bolt IOT WiFi model is connected to digital ocean Ubuntu cloud server with the help of Bolt configuration API ID and Bolt Device ID. In the cloud server, the Python code is generated for temperature monitoring. In this python code both bolt device as well as Twilio configurations are provided. The Twilio works as a Cloud Platform as a service which provides the particular mobile number through which alert message will be send to the mobile number provided in a code. Table.2. gives temperature readings from the Bolt cloud Data analytics in excel format.

In the python code temperature limits are set to 30°C as minimum temperature and 50°C as maximum temperature. So as the temperature crosses the threshold value, the alert message is send to the respective concern person using Twilio platform. As observing table.1 and Fig 2.2.1, the temperature of the storage space has crossed the threshold values from the time 11.30 AM. So at that point the respective person is started to receiving the alert message in mobile. The screenshots of alert messages are shown in fig.2.2.2.

This is how the alert message is send to the person, so that the preventive action will be taken to maintain the temperature within limits once action.

3. Conclusion

To conclude, the implementation of IOT and cloud computing as separate technologies comes with a lot of limitations due to their specific features. But when combined, they complement each other well and help to overcome each other's shortcomings. In fact, this combined power of cloud and IOT, often called as Cloud IOT, provide virtually unlimited potential to solve many of the pressing problems which are faced today. The above practical application is a testimony to the potential of Cloud IOT and it will makes the temperature monitoring which the crucial task for many pharmaceutical companies bit easy and efficient. The implementation of this kind of temperature monitoring system for different applications and making a system as closed control system is in the future scope.