A smart diaper wetness detection sensor : concept, design and ethical considerations

Human waste contained in diapers is a rich source of medical health based data. Embedding low-cost, wearable sensors in disposable diapers provides an opportunity for self-health monitoring and advancing preventative medicine. Diaper users include infants, elderly, disabled individuals, and hospital patients. Diaper wetness-based alerting can enhance care of this population by improving incontinence management, preventing rashes and infections, and avoiding embarrassment. A practical implementation of this consumer-oriented system will directly impact the user, their habits, ecosystem around the user, enhance access to health based information and disrupt the existing business models. Integrating ethical dimensions of privacy, safety, security, sustainability and socio-economic implications is essential to responsible technology development.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Sen, Pankhuri.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Sanjay E. Sarma.

• Engineering Systems Division.
• System Design and Management Program.
• Institute for Data, Systems, and Society.
• Technology and Policy Program.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/145236

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/145236