The design of a wireless portable device for personalized ultraviolet monitoring

Abstract

The skin care product market is growing due to the threat of ultraviolet (UV) radiation caused by the destruction of the ozone layer, increasing demand for tanning, and the tendency to wear less clothing. Accordingly, there is a potential demand for a personalized UV monitoring system, which can play a fundamental role in skin cancer prevention by providing measurements of UV radiation intensities and corresponding recommendations. Furthermore, the need for such device becomes more vital since it has turned out that in some places (e.g., on snowy mountains) the UV exposure gets doubled, while individuals are unaware of this fact. This paper highlights the development and initial validation of a wireless and portable embedded system for personalized UV monitoring which is based on a novel software architecture, a high-end UV sensor, and conventional PDA (or a cell phone). In terms of short-term applications, by calculating the UV index, it informs the users about their maximum recommended sun exposure time by taking their skin type and sun protection factor (SPF) of the applied sunscreen into consideration. As for long-term applications, given that the damage caused by UV light is accumulated over days, it is able to keep a record of the amount of UV received over a certain course of time, from a single day to a month. Low energy consumption and high accuracy in estimating the UV index are salient features of this system.