2015 IEEE 4th Global Conference on Consumer Electronics (GCCE)
A Smart Pill Box with Remind and Consumption
Confirmation Functions
Huai-Kuei Wu1,Member, IEEE, Chi-Ming Wong2, Pang-Hsing Liu1, Sheng-Po Peng1, Xun-Cong Wang1, Chih-Hi Lin1 and
Kuan-Hui Tu1
1
Department of Information Networking and System Administration, Ling-Tung University, Taichung, Taiwan
2
Department of Electronic Engineering, Jinwen University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan
Abstract—Population aging is a global issue that affects many
developing countries such as Taiwan. The natural decline in
physical function with aging leads to an increase in incidences of
various chronic diseases in elderly individuals; most patients with
chronic diseases need to take medications over a prolonged
period of time in order to stabilize their conditions. Ensuring that
the patients consume the right medication at the appropriate
time becomes crucial. This paper proposes a smart pill box
equipped with a camera and based on the medicine bag concept.
The matrix bar code printed on the medicine bags is used to
interact with the pill box in order to perform pill remind and
confirm functions.
Keywords—smart pill box; medicification safty; matrix bar
code; the elderly;
I. INTRODUCTION
With the rapid advancement in medical technology and a
lower birth rate, the percentage of elderly population is
increasing rapidly. Population aging is a global issue that
affects many developing countries such as Taiwan. Taiwan was
officially moved on to the list of aging societies in September
1993. It is estimated that the elderly population in Taiwan will
be 14% of the total population in 2018, which indicates that the
nation will become an aged society[1]. Population aging will
result in a significant impact on society. In a rapidly aging
society, it is important to investigate information and
communication technology-based solutions to improve the
quality of life of the elderly and reduce the responsibility of
their families.
The natural decline in physical function with aging leads to
an increase in incidences of a variety of chronic diseases in
elderly people. According to the Health Promotion
Administration (HPA)’s investigation, 88.71% of the aging
population suffers from at least one chronic disease, indicates
the high occurrence rate of chronic diseases in an aging
population. Furthermore, most patients with chronic diseases
need to take medications over a prolonged period of time in
order to stabilize their conditions. In the case of elderly patients
suffering from chronic diseases, it is crucial to ensure that they
consume the right medication at the appropriate time,
especially those who are suffering from two or more chronic
diseases and therefore need to take more complex
combinations of medications. However, a majority of patients
find it difficult to take their medications at appropriate times
throughout an extended duration for which the medication
course lasts.
To resolve these issues, we focused on problems faced by
the elderly required to take medication, with the aim of
978-1-4799-8751-1/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE
developing a smart low-cost pillbox equipped with medication
reminders and confirmation functions by incorporating the use
of a matrix barcode. Our pillbox differs from existing solutions
as it can provide medical bag checks and confirm medications,
all at a low cost. Furthermore, our electronic physical pillbox is
suitable for elderly individuals who are not familiar with
technology-based products because they will be interacting
with the pillbox primarily through the matrix barcode. With
improved convenience and lower costs, the new options
created through this work can assist the elderly in developing
the habit of taking their medications regularly.
II. RELATED WORK
In order to stabilize the condition of the patient, it is
necessary for the patient to take medications regularly as per
the prescribed dose and duration. Traditional plaid-based pill
boxes are widely used, and many modifications on the
traditional pill box have been proposed previously. In [2], an
electronic pillbox called MedTracker was proposed; in the
MedTracker, the time at which each lid was opened or closed
is recorded, and transmitted to PC via a Bluetooth link.
However, the MedTracker does not provide any remind or
confirm functions. In [3], a pill box based on a MCS-51
micro-controller was proposed; that pill box can send out
medicine using a stepper motor at a scheduled time, but there
was no provision to record the time when the patient actually
took the medicine. Apart from the abovementioned
disadvantages, the other disadvantages of these previous
systems are as follows:
• The family members or patients need to fill the medicine in
the pill box manually; this is an additional responsibility for
family members of the elderly, or even the patients.
• Manually filling the medicine in the pill box may cause the
medicine to dampen easily.
• Plaid-based pill boxes are only suitable for solid-type
medicine and not for powder-based or liquid-type
medicines.
• Plaid-based pill boxes are not easy to clean, and can lead to
cross-contamination.
In [4], an intelligent pill box (IPB) was proposed. The IPB
is based on the medicine bag system, and the IPB sends a
medicine bag out of the box at the appropriate time. If the
patient does not take the medicine bag away, the IPB would
notify the caregivers via Skype. The IPB system improves the
interactivity between patient and caregivers, but it works well
only if an internet connection is available.
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 Patient take
START
medicine

reminder:take your Start the scan

medication. process.

Fig. 1. The medicine bag with matrix barcode printed

No
remind after No Smart pill box medicine taken
5 minutes. open? finish?

III. THE PROPOSED SMART PILL BOX WITH REMIND AND
CONFIRM FUNCTION
To address the problems with the previously proposed pill
boxes, we develop the smart pill box with remind and confirm
functions. In order to reduce the responsibility of family
members of dividing the medications in the pill box, we
assume that the medicine the patients need to take at particular
times has been packed into medical bags by the hospital as
shown in Fig. 1. The matrix barcode is printed on each
medicine bag; the information contained in the matrix barcode
includes the patient name, patient identification (ID), hospital
ID, medicine name, medicine ID, medication time, and other
related information about the medicine bag.
The design of the proposed pill box proposed is shown in
Fig. 2. The camera is placed on the inner side of the cover to
detect the matrix barcode and the medicine bag. A user
interface on the surface of the cover is used to provide pill
remind and alarm functions. After visiting a doctor and
returning home, a patient need only scan the matrix barcode
using the camera of the pillbox, and all medicine related
information will be loaded into the pill box. After the matrix
barcode is scanned, the patient places the medicine bags in the
pill box without dispensing the medicine in to the cell. This
method is suitable for the elderly who do not have access to the
internet as well. Furthermore, because private medical
information is not transmitted via the internet, the risk of
information theft is greatly reduced. Moreover, if an internet
connection does exist, then patients can search for their
medicine information from the hospital database.
Fig. 2. The proposed smart pill box
The flowchart of the remind and confirm processes is
shown in Fig. 3. At the medication time, the pill box will
remind the elderly patients, via light, sound, or vibration, to
take their medication. The elderly patient will pick one
medicine bag from the pill box and scan the medicine bag
using the pill box camera. The pill box will use the information
contained in the matrix bar code of medicine bag to ensure the
correctness of the medicine bag, thus ensuring that the patient
takes the right medicine appropriately. If the patient does not
take the medicine, the pill box will remind the patient later, and
the remind period can be set using the user interface on the pill
box. Furthermore, if the patient picks the incorrect medicine
bag, the pill box will alert the patient to pick the right medicine
bag.
Yes Yes
start The scan
process.
close the
Smart pill
box.
No authenticate
patient's QR
code? END
Yes
No Correct time to Yes
take medicine?
Fig. 3. The flowchart of the remind and confirm process
After the patient has taken the medicine, the patient needs
to scan the medicine bag using the camera; the camera will
determine whether the medicine bag is a bag that was
previously scanned; if yes, then the camera will try to identify
the edge of the pill in the transparent medicine bag to ensure
whether the patient has taken the medicine. Using the
abovementioned procedure, the pillbox can ensure that the
medication is taken safely and on time.
The advantages of our smart pill box are as follows:
(1)Medicine-bag-based design avoids the problems associated
with plaid-based pill box. (2)The remind and confirm functions
work well even if internet service is unavailable, thus reducing
the implementation cost. (3)The patient only needs to scan the
matrix barcode to verify and confirm the medicine bag and a
complex user interface setup is not required.
IV. CONCLUSION
To improve medication safety among the elderly, this paper
proposed a smart pill box with remind and confirm functions.
The proposed pill box can reduce family member’s
responsibility towards ensuring the correct and timely
consumption of medicines. Because the proposed pill box is
based on the medicine bag concept and the matrix bar code
printed on the medicine bag simplifies the operational
procedure. The remind and confirm functions work well even if
internet service is not available, thus reducing implementation
costs.
REFERENCES
[1] Executive Yuan of the Republic of China, “Population policy white paper:
Fewer Children, Population Aging and Immigration,” July 2013.
[2] T.L. Hayes, J.M. Hunt, A. Adami and J.A. Kaye, “An electronic pillbox
for continuous monitoring of medication adherence,” in proceesings of
the 28th IEEE EMBS Annual International Conference, Aug. 30-Sept. 3,
2006.
[3] H.-W. Kuo, “Research and Implementation of Intelligent MedicalBox,”
M.S.thesis, Department of Electrical Engineering, I-Shou University,
Kaohsiung, TW, 2009
[4] S.-C. Huang, H.-Y. Chang, Y.-C. Jhu and G.-Y. Chen, “The intelligent
pill box-design and implementation,” in proceedings of the IEEE
International Conference on Consumer Electronics, May 26-28, Taiwan.

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