Portable Carb Estimator

— Subha Ramadoss

This box shaped carbohydrateestimator can estimate closely thecarb content of the food placedinside it. Easy to use at home or carryto restaurants, where it is otherwise,

difcult to estimate the carb content of

many of the items in the menu.Interfacing with insulin pumps, it can beused to signal the pump to automaticallydispense the appropriate amount of insulin.

Being diabetic is a challenge in itself. Coupled with the complexities of today’s food choices, many of the time it becomes overwhelming to estimate the carb content of the given food. When we go to aRestaurant to eat, we don’t always get to know the nutritional information along with the menu.Imagine... it’d be so neat to place whatever you want to eat in a box (something like a lunch box) andthe box calculates and lets you know an estimated amount of carbohydrate placed inside it.To detect the total amount of sugar, absorption spectrum of mid-infra red region is used as shown

in gure 1. Various types of sugars like glucose, sucrose and fructose present amount dependent

absorption value for particular wavelengths of infra red radiation that fall on them. This property of sugars is exploited by electronically processing the unabsorbed portion of the radiation. The source isplaced on the underside of the lid and the whole surface area of the box is exposed. The capture of unabsorbed radiation gives us an estimation of the carb content inside.

A b s o r p t i o n

Wavelength2.3 micrometersMid-Infra Red Absorption Spectrumof Glucose

Figure 1 : Infra-Red radiation scanning the whole of the box. Analysis of unabsorbed wavelengths gives

an estimation of the carb content under the scan.