Smart Sleep Alarm For Sleep Apnea
Using Oximeter
Abstract— Nowadays, patients with sleep apnea situated in
areas lacking in technological advancements are given
overnight supervision. Sleep apnea is a common condition in
which the patients’ breathing stops and restarts many times
when sleeping. This results in oxygen deficiency and may result
in fatality if left unattended over a period. Therefore, to
provide supervision in absence of medical staff we introduce
“Smart Sleep Alarm for Sleep Apnea Using Oximeter”. The
oximeter measures how Oxygenated a host’s blood is and it
also detects heartbeat (BPM). Furthermore, a haptic feedback
actuator is connected to the patient’s bed. The sensor
continuously reads these vitals obtained from the host. When
oxygen content in blood is low, haptic feedback is enabled. The
immense feedback response is enough to wake up any heavy
sleeper. Using this apparatus, we can avoid deaths caused by
sleep apnea and contribute to modern solutions.
Keywords—Sleep Apnea, SpO2, pulse oximeter
I. INTRODUCTION
Sleep apnea and hypopnea syndrome (SAHS) is a sleep
disorder which occurs in middle aged population,2%among
females and 4% among males. It is indicated as abnormal
pause in breathing and troubled sleep. [1]. It is treatable,
however 90% of the sufferers go unidentified and therefore
untreated. [2]. The patients suffer from daytime sleepiness
and fatigue and therefore are prone to traffic accidents, and
experience memory loss and depression. [3], [4]. A common
definition of apnea involves a cessation of airflow for at least
10 s while hypopnea is defined as a minimum 10-s airflow
reduction with either a blood oxygen desaturation of 4% or a
neurological arousal [5].
.There is a lot of cost involved in detection of sleep apnea
as there are few professionals working in the field[6], [7].
This is due to high diagnostic cost and the time patients must
spend in waiting lists [8] In addition patients also must spend
a lot of times with multiple number of sensors attached to
their bodies in hospital beds which is not a natural
environment and cannot give us accurate cure. Research is
being made to make it an easier process by reducing the
number of sensors and implement it in a patient home. It is
being carried out in several ways.
Sleep apnea detection methods being used include single
lead ECG which can detect difference in breathing patterns
and talk about different sleep apnea classification [9]. Hello
Sleep apnea can also be detected using deep learning
algorithms applied on ECG and UCD database [10]. A
combination of SpO2 and ECG features is also used to get
sleep apnea analysis.[11]. Contactless solutions using
smartphones are also available which can work in a home
setting.[12] Iot based systems are also proposed which gives
overnight diagnostic of the patient by using SpO2 data and
cloud to process information.[13]. Other researchers use
ballistocardiograph (BCG) [14][15] and others use pressure
sensors [16]. The sound is also used to determine OSA [17]
[18].
The study of sleep Apnea Hypopnea Syndrome
helps analyze hemoglobin oxygen saturation levels using
Artificial Neural Network classifier for sleep Apnea
detection. The proposed system is tested using a data set
composed of 8 subjects with one-minute notations. The
optimal system consists of seven features which are utilized
from a total of 61 features. The artificial Network system
reached up to 97 percent accuracy using these 7 features.
Detection of sleep apnea is carried out
through study and Progressive work. By utilizing GA
(Genetic Algorithm) and ANN (Artificial Neural Network)
the system can achieve such high efficiency. Features
selected by the GA algorithm are mostly composed of time-
frequency signal. A total of four out of seven are time-
frequency signals, out of which only two time and one
frequency feature is selected. From this selection procedure,
it is understandable that most of the information about
Apnea events lies in the time-frequency space. With
evolution and technical advancement accuracy has been
greatly improved upon. It is to be noted that one drawback
of using these methods is that the structure of MLP
(Multilayer perception) is calculated using a rule of thumb
and experimental search which can be replaced by a GA
algorithm. These ideas are under consideration for future
work.
II. COMPONENTS
The following components were utilized to assemble a smart
sleep alarm for sleep apnea.
Micro controller ESP32:
ESP32 is a low-cost, low-power Microcontroller with
integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The Raspberry Pi Pico and
the ESP32 are two of the most popular microcontrollers on
the market. They are two small, low-power microcontrollers
built on 32-bit dual-core CPUs that can be used to control
electronics projects.
Fig 1
Pulse sensor:
Pulse Sensor is a reflection type photoelectric analog
sensor used to measure pulse and heart rate. Having been
worn around the finger or earlobe, the sensor can transmit
the collected analog signal to MCU. And then the analog
signal will be converted into digital signal. With simple
calculation finished, the MCU gets heart rate values and
uploads them to computer for drawing the pulse waveform.
Fig 2
SG 90 servo motor:
SG90 is a popular micro servo motor commonly
used in DIY projects. It is a small, low-cost servo motor that
can rotate 180 degrees with a maximum torque of 1.8 kg-
cm. It operates at 4.8-6V and has a weight of approximately
9 grams, making it ideal for small-scale robotics and model
control applications.
Fig 3
III. WORKING
It is common for people experiencing a shortage of
breath, such as during intense physical activity, anxiety, or
certain medical conditions, to have an elevated pulse rate.
Shortness of breath can cause the body to go into a state of
increased physiological stress, leading to an increase in heart
rate. This response is part of the body's natural mechanism
to ensure adequate oxygen supply to the tissues. Sleep apnea
is another case of shortness of breath. Although there are
other ways to identify it, doing so by analyzing shortness of
breath is more conventional.
The pulse meter is configured such that it first gives a
reliable output. There was ambiguity regarding sensitivity
for the sensor and sudden overshoots in output despite
providing correct threshold measures. The issue was
resolved by taking basic measures. Everything is held
together by the code in fact which is explained in next
section. We set our sensor threshold to 130, as on average
we had a reading of 125. Upon holding breath for quite
some time the reading increased to 132. We therefore set our
threshold to 130. Now what will happen when the reading
exceeds 130? It is understandable what the body will do.
The real question is what this module will do. An actuator
is incorporated with ESP32. Wherever a patient’s pulse rate
is greater then 130, actuator starts and completes its cycles
until the pulse falls below the prescribed threshold.
For our system, we have used ADC 2 of ESP32 GPIO 15 for
pulse oximeter and we have connected our servo with GPIO
26.
Following image, display the pin definition in the code.
Fig 4
IV. SENSOR CONFIRGURATION
To configure a pulse sensor, you'll typically need to connect
it to a microcontroller or development board and write code
to read and interpret the sensor's output. Here are the general
steps to configure a pulse sensor:
Gather the required materials: You'll need a pulse sensor
module, a microcontroller or development board such as
Arduino or ESP32, jumper wires, and optionally a
breadboard.
Connect the hardware: Connect the pulse sensor module to
the microcontroller or development board. Typically, the
pulse sensor will have three pins: VCC, GND, and an analog
output pin. Connect the VCC pin to a 5V power source, the
GND pin to ground, and the analog output pin to an analog
input pin on the microcontroller. Use jumper wires to make
these connections.
Write the code: Use the appropriate programming language
(e.g., Arduino programming language) to write code that
reads the analog input pin and processes the sensor data.
You'll need to use the microcontroller's analog input
functions to read the voltage values from the pulse sensor.
Calibrate and interpret the sensor data: Pulse sensors
usually output analog voltage values that correspond to the
detected pulse rate. You may need to calibrate the sensor
based on its specifications or adjust the code to interpret the
data correctly. This can involve mapping the analog values
to actual pulse rates and applying filters or algorithms to
extract meaningful information from the sensor readings.
3. The'setup()' function: - Connects the servo to the GPIO
pin that has been provided (GPIO 26).
- Sets ADC's resolution to 12 bits.
- Sets the attenuation of the ADC channel to 11 dB.
- Establishes the Serial communication at a 9600 baud
rate.
4. The 'loop()' function uses the ADC to read the raw
analogue data from the pulse sensor.
- Converts the analogue value to a range of heartbeats (60
to 200 per minute).
- Sends a printout of the heartbeat value to a serial plotter
for monitoring.
- The servo motor is activated to imitate a heartbeat if the
heartbeat value is greater than the threshold set:
- Waits 15ms between each step as the servo motor
rotates from 0 to 180 degrees in stages of 1 degree.
5. "delay(50)": Controls the sample rate by adding a 50
millisecond delay at the conclusion of each loop.

Test and iterate: Upload the code to the microcontroller

and test the setup. Monitor the output, and if necessary, VI. CIRCUIT:
refine your code or adjust the hardware connections to
ensure accurate readings.

V. CODE EXPLAINATION

The purpose of this Arduino sketch is to take data from a

pulse sensor and drive a servo motor based on the heartbeat
signal on an ESP32 board. The servo motor is attached to
GPIO pin 26 (SERVO_PIN) and the pulse sensor is
connected to the ESP32's analogue input.

The sketch is broken into as follows:

First, libraries
- 'ESP32Servo.h': Servo motor control library.
- 'driver/adc.h': A library to access the analog-to-digital
converter (ADC) on the ESP32.

2. Variables and constants: Fig 5

'SERVO_PIN' refers to the GPIO pin (GPIO 26) where the
servo motor is attached.
The ADC channel that is coupled to the pulse sensor (AD1 VII. REVIEW TABLE
channel 0) is designated as "PulseSensorPurplePin."
- 'LED13': The Arduino board's LED (GPIO 2).
- 'Signal': A variable used to store the Pulse Sensor's raw Year Researcher Signal Used
analogue data. 2006 C. Varon ECG
- 'Threshold': The threshold value used to decide when to 2017 S. S. Mostafa ECG,SpO2
"turn on" the Arduino LED and engage the servo motor. 2012 B. Xie and H. SpO2
- 'analogResolution','minAnalogValue', Minn
and'maxAnalogValue': ADC parameters to map the 2015 Nandakumar Audio
analogue value heartbeat range. 2010 Jae Hyuk Shin Pressure Data
-'minHeartbeat' and'maxHeartbeat': The minimum and
maximum heartbeat values mapping.
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