Bhubaneswar: At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has placed an enormous strain on the mental health of a large number of people, a professor in School of Computer Engineering, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT)—Biswaranjan Acharya—and his team has come up with a device that claims to tackle anxiety in its users.
The device is fitted with a variety of sensors, configured to collect vital data from the body of the user. It also has a unit that can interact with the user and collects inputs from the user regarding his or her state of mental health. The input gathered from the user is analyzed by the determining unit to assess his or her state of mind and the level of stress. “The device will monitor the mental health parameters of the person 24×7. In case of an emergency, it will immediately raise an alarm. It can be configured in such a manner that it sends an alarm to the nearby hospital for emergency support and informs his or her relatives,” claimed Acharya.
For instance—as Acharya claims—if the device determines that the stress level is high and the person loves to hear instrumental music, it will start playing the music. “If the device finds that the person is feeling lonely, it will interact with him and ensure that the person is back to the normal mood. The check is kept on the stress level of the user,” he adds.
As per the inventor, the device uses different sensors such as an axis accelerometer, altimeter, bio-impedance sensor, ECG sensor, optical heart rate sensor, pulse oximeter, temperature sensor and electrocardiogram, among others.
The device will also contain a database of questions and answers for interacting with the person. “There will be a knowledge base which will help in determining the right kind of questions, based on the situation. There will be a database of all kinds of jokes, music, videos, movie clips. It is a dynamic database that is connected to the device. Whenever new contents are retrieved from the user input or via the internet, a copy is stored in the database for future reference purposes. The database is configured to be connected through various application program interfaces like YouTube, Wikipedia and so on to fetch real-time information,” he explained.
Acharya, who has been a part of about 50 patented projects, has developed the device’s model along with his teammates from Sriram Chandra Bhanjadeo University, Baripada, and Gita Institute for Technology. The team, which has already applied for the patent under the government of India, is busy preparing the prototype. Speaking about the commercial viability of the project, Acharya claims it will cost about Rs 3,000 to 5,000 to manufacture one such device.
One of Acharya’s recent inventions—gloves for visually-impaired people—has already received a patent from the government of Australia. “The glove can replace the walking stick. It will help the visually impaired to navigate easily by detecting obstacles on the path of the user in a range of three meters,” he claimed.
The device is equipped with left and right ultrasonic sensors, a pre-recorded voice generated unit, a visual sensor, a vibration sensor, a power backup facility and a microcontroller-based processing unit.
