Human Hydration Monitoring

Abstract

Chronic dehydration is the usual state at which most people keep their bodies through their entire lives. Dehydration states lead to many unnoticed detrimental health issues that can end up reducing the life quality of entire societies. Water is the most important nutrient of human life, and because of this it is important to monitor it. To my present knowledge, currently there are no commercial wearable dehydration monitors that could help the public in keeping well hydrated and healthy. This is the reason why finding a low-cost way to design a dehydration sensor system in a wearable format is of paramount importance. In this work, the basis for the design of a hydration monitor are established, and this could lead in the future, to a wearable device that consumers could reach to so as to keep their hydration status well screened. In order to achieve such goal, multiple sensors were designed, simulated using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software, fabricated in The University of Texas at Dallas Cleanroom, tested in-vitro, and those that performed best were tested in Human Trials. Moreover, a custom Analog Front End linked to a microcontroller was designed and fabricated to interface the sensors and provide measurement readings.