05 Group Project · PCB Design · Patient Monitoring

SmartCare Monitor

A compact patient-monitoring and alert system that tracks a room's conditions and schedules and warns a caregiver with clear visual and audible alerts — taken from breadboard all the way to a custom PCB.

ArduinoAltium DesignerRFID RTCTemp · soundLCD · RGB · buzzer Custom PCB
SmartCare breadboard prototype
breadboard prototype — swap for a higher-res hero when ready
a team project · ECE2242 · taken from breadboard to PCB

The idea.

A user-friendly monitoring and alert system for elderly and at-risk patients in home-care and clinical settings.

The system is built around one principle: important changes in a patient's environment or schedule should be detected quickly and communicated clearly to a caregiver. Because the users are elderly, usability drove the design — information comes through simple visual and audible outputs rather than complicated interactions. It continuously tracks conditions and schedules, shows them in real time, and raises immediate alerts when something needs attention.

A collaborative course project (ECE2242) — team of three — covering the full path from simulation and breadboard through schematic capture and a custom PCB.

How it works.

Environmental sensors, a real-time clock, and RFID feed an Arduino, which processes them and communicates through an LCD, an RGB LED, and a buzzer.

Features

MONITOR

Environment sensing

Continuously tracks room temperature and sound level, the two conditions most relevant to a patient's comfort and safety.

SCHEDULE

Real-time clock

An RTC tracks schedules and time so the system can flag missed or upcoming events, not just live conditions.

ACCESS

RFID

RFID adds identification and access functionality to the system through a simple key-fob style interaction.

ALERTS

Visual + audible

An RGB LED and a buzzer give clear, immediate feedback — the alerts an elderly user or a caregiver can act on without reading fine print.

READOUT

LCD display

Real-time information on an LCD, kept simple and legible so the current state is always visible at a glance.

INPUT

Joystick control

A joystick lets the user move through the interface with a single, familiar physical control.

From breadboard to PCB.

A main goal of the project was to move past a breadboard prototype and produce a compact, reliable custom board.

Arduino breadboard prototype
1 — Breadboard prototype: components validated individually, then combined
Altium PCB layout with labelled sections
2 — PCB layout in Altium, with RFID, RTC, sensors and I/O placed and routed
Assembled custom PCB
3 — The assembled custom PCB — compact, routed, and more durable

The circuit was designed in Altium Designer, mapping the Arduino's analog and digital pins to each module with organised signal and power routing. Moving to a custom board reduced wiring complexity, minimised noise, and produced a more compact and durable prototype than the breadboard could.

Altium schematic / 3D viewdrop the full schematic and the PCB 3D render here

Testing & iteration.

Every component validated on its own — in Tinkercad simulation and on the breadboard — before any two were combined.

A. Individual parts

Pushbutton + buzzer, sound sensor, LCD, temperature sensor, RFID and RTC each tested alone, in simulation and on the breadboard.

Tinkercad / breadboard tests

B. Combined modules

Then combined in twos and threes — LCD + clock, LCD + RFID, button + temperature + sound — to prove they communicate correctly.

combined-module tests

Troubleshooting.

The core challenge wasn't any single part — it was making many independently-working parts behave as one reliable device.

Case 01

Integrating many modules on one board

Symptom

Combining several sensors, user inputs, a display, and alert outputs created wiring and integration challenges — parts that worked alone didn't automatically cooperate.

Approach

Tested every component independently — in Tinkercad and on the breadboard — then verified each one before combining two or three at a time.

Fix

Gradually integrated the LCD, clock, RFID, button, and temperature and sound sensors, then transferred the validated breadboard design into a custom Altium PCB with organised placement and routing.

Lesson

Getting from working parts to a working system means treating the electrical connections and the physical PCB layout as their own design problem, not an afterthought.

What I learned.