🩺 MediBox – Smart Medicine Management System

EN2853 - Embedded Systems and Applications | Semester 4 Project

📘 Overview

MediBox is an intelligent embedded system designed to manage and monitor medicine dispensing and storage conditions. Built around the ESP32 platform, it integrates environmental sensing, actuator control, real-time scheduling, and an IoT dashboard via Node-RED using MQTT communication. The goal is to assist users—especially the elderly or chronically ill—in maintaining timely medication habits while monitoring the surrounding environment.

🔧 Features

• 🌡️ Environmental Monitoring

  • DHT22 sensor tracks temperature and humidity inside the medicine box.
  • Light intensity sensing with LDR to detect ambient conditions.

• ⚙️ Servo-Controlled Dispenser

  • Servo motor dynamically adjusts based on light, temperature, and configurable thresholds.

• ⏰ Alarms & Scheduling

  • Multiple daily alarms with options to snooze or delete via button interface.

• 🖥️ OLED Status Display

  • 0.96" OLED screen shows real-time temperature, time, alarm notifications, and system status.

• 📡 MQTT Integration

  • Publishes sensor data and receives real-time parameter updates using MQTT topics.

• 🌐 Node-RED Dashboard

  • Visualizes sensor data and allows real-time parameter tuning remotely via web interface.

---

🧰 Hardware Requirements

• ESP32 Dev Board
• DHT22 Temperature and Humidity Sensor
• LDR (Light Dependent Resistor)
• SG90 Servo Motor
• 0.96" OLED Display (128x64 I2C)
• Buzzer
• Push Buttons (Menu navigation, Acknowledge, Snooze/Delete)
• LEDs (System and Alarm indicators)
• 5V Power Source / USB

---

💻 Software Stack

• Development Tools

  • Arduino IDE or PlatformIO
  • Node-RED for Dashboard
  • MQTT Broker (e.g., Mosquitto, HiveMQ Cloud)

• Key Libraries

  • Adafruit_SSD1306, Adafruit_GFX
  • DHTesp
  • PubSubClient
  • ArduinoJson
  • ESP32Servo

---

📁 Project Structure

MediBox/
├── src/
│   └── main.cpp                # Main firmware source code
├── Node-RED/
│   └── flows.json              # Dashboard flow for Node-RED
├── platformio.ini              # PlatformIO config (if used)
└── README.md                   # This file

---

⚙️ System Workflow

1. Startup Initialization

   • Connects to WiFi and MQTT broker.
   • Initializes sensors, OLED, and actuators.
   • Publishes initial parameter settings.

2. Sensor Sampling & Actuation

   • Periodically reads DHT22 and LDR values.
   • Computes new servo position based on parameters (e.g., temperature thresholds, gamma scaling).
   • Triggers alarm buzzer and updates display when alarm time matches.

3. MQTT Communication

   • Publishes:
     • Sensor Data → medibox/sensor_data
     • Parameters → Medibox/ts, Medibox/tu, etc. or combined as JSON at Medibox/params
   • Subscribes:
     • Parameter updates from Node-RED → changes are applied live.

4. Node-RED Dashboard

   • Visual elements: gauges, charts, sliders, and fields.
   • Users can remotely:
     • View live data (temperature, humidity, light)
     • Adjust parameters like ts, tu, gammaValue, Tmed, etc.
     • Monitor system status

---

🌍 Node-RED Dashboard Setup

1. Import the flow:
   Node-RED/flows.json

2. Configure MQTT broker settings in both firmware and Node-RED.

3. The dashboard displays:

   • 🔢 Sensor values in real-time
   • 🎛️ Live-configurable parameters
   • 📝 System configuration summary

---

🛠️ Troubleshooting

• Ensure all components are wired correctly.
• Use the Serial Monitor to check for connectivity/debug messages.
• Confirm broker credentials and topic names match.
• Use Node-RED’s debug panel to inspect incoming MQTT messages.

---

👨‍💻 Author

Pasindu Dodampegama
Department of Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering
Faculty of Engineering, University of Moratuwa

---