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DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A SMART HAND WASHING MACHINE

USING ARDUINO

Conference Paper · December 2021

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 DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A SMART HAND
WASHING MACHINE USING ARDUINO

By

Hamza Abdullahi1, Sani A. Muhammad2, Bello Muhammad3, Shamsu

Idris Abdullahi4 Sule Inuwa Tofa5

1,2,3,4
Department of Electrical/Electronic Engineering, School of
Technology, Kano State Polytechnic
5
Department of Computer Engineering, School of Technology, Kano
State Polytechnic

Being a paper presented at 1ST Multidisplinary National

Conference in Pharmaceutical Science and Technology,
PHARMTECH 2021 Kano State Polytechnic, Kano state.

NOVEMBER 2021
ABSTRACT

Hand washing is a serious activity in preventing the spread of infection in health-care

environments and food preparation areas. Several guidelines recommended a hand washing
protocol consisting of two steps that ensure that all areas of the hands are thoroughly cleaned.
This paper attempts to develop a smart hand washing machine that is user-friendly and easy to
plug in regular water pipe for standard hand-washing routine. An Interaction Design Process
that aims to maximize product usability was applied during the development. The machine
utilized Ultrasonic Sensor to detect presence of hands that would automatically commence the
hand-washing process. First, it exited soap solution to force users to use soap and later clean
water. The cleaning duration was marked. The validation test showed health practitioner agreed
the project facilitates a standard handwashing. The user test in 30 participants showed users
used soap and cleaned in the exact duration. In this modern era automation helps us to save
time, cost as well as manpower.

Key words: Arduino, Automatic Hand Washing, Hand sanitizer, Ultrasonic Sensor,
1.0 INTRODUCTION

Handwashing is the core preventive measure when done correctly, is critical in the fight against
COVID-19, but 3 billion people have no ready access to a place to wash their hands with soap at
home [2]. World Health Organization (WHO) released interim guidance on 1 April 2020,
recommending to all Member States to make hand hygiene facilities in front of public and
private commercial buildings as well as at all transport hubs obligatory [4]. In particular people
in densely populated settings will benefit from improved hand hygiene infrastructure at home
and in public places. Hand washing is the simplest, important and cost-effective way to improve
hand hygiene in health care and support the prevention of infectious disease. The WHO standard
obligates people for hand washing with nonantibacterial soap and water. The duration ranged on
average as short as 20 seconds to 30 sec-onds, including rub the backs of hands, wrists, between
fin-gers and under fingernails [1, 7]. Hand washing with soap and water is more effective for the
removal of bacteria than washing with water alone to 23% [8]. Hand washing helps to prevent
any diseases that spread through contact. In order to eliminate most of the germs on the hands,
one needs to apply a good hand washing practice. In most healthcare settings, alcohol-based
hand sanitizers are preferable to hand washing with soap and water because it can be easily
tolerated and it is also more effective at reducing bacteria. Hand sanitizer is a liquid, gel, or foam
generally used to de-crease infectious agents on the hands. A sanitizer is designed to kill germs
on skin, objects and surfaces.

2.0 RELATED WORK

Smart hand washing machine that does not necessitate users to turn the tap outlet lever to exit
water are common. It uses Ultrasonic Sensor to detect presence of hands. Several automatic
outlets to exit soap also have used the similar us-age of Ultrasonic Sensor in detecting hands.

In term of designing automatic system for handwashing standard procedure, [5] has developed a
machine that accommodate wetting, lathering, scrubbing, rinsing and drying in automatic mode.
The machine consisted of a sink and 3 outlets of water, soap, air blower that was controlled
electronically. The hand-wash process used timer to exit soap, then water and then air blow. The
design also included mechanical component of water piping, pump and housing. Other patented
design entitled Automatic Hand Washing and Drying Machine were also consisted of water-
soap-dryer [6]. The machine design included electronic components and mechanical piping and
pump. Both designs were in a form of integrated automatic basin. Both machines were required
to be assembled as a complete basin system. In market, such automatic basins were available as
well.

U.S. PAT No.4, 606, 085, issued to Davies entitled "HAND WASHING DEVICE” discloses an
electro mechanical device that is provided with time element which are initiated by the flow of
water. The hand washing device has a wash cycle and a rinse cycle and an emollient timer
triggered after the rinse cycle to dispense of the emollient.

Automatic hand washing machines have become a central theme in the world experience. They
are now found in places, far removed from airports and other institutions, places like restaurants,
hotels, malls, sports arenas as well as residential properties.

Known for their assistive qualities, automatic hand washing machines are making their presence
felt at living establishments and places where the elderly and or handicapped individuals call
homes. They are water saving devices and other benefits as earlier motioned are found in
inhibiting the spread of germs which are known to thrive on tap outlets handles.

Fig1. The circuit diagram of the system

3.0 COMPONENTS OF THE SYSTEM

Development of the smart hand washing machine used Interaction Design process to carefully
consider the usability of the product that meet the standard hand-wash procedure as well. The
components of the system were shown in Fig.1. The design of the Smart Hand Washing Machine
is present-ed in fig 1. This system is an automatic soap solution and water dispenser that uses
simple components. The system used two water tanks one for the water and the other one for the
liquid soap, both the two tanks connected to a separate tap using non return valve. Each tank
connected to water pump machine to supply it contents to the tap. The system also used
Ultrasonic sensor for the detection of Hands at a specified distance.

This system consists of two parts, Hardware and Soft-ware. The Hardware Components parts
include:

1- Arduino Uno
2- Two Water Pump (DC Pump)
3- One Ultrasonic Sensor
4- Two Channel Relay Boards
5- Two water tap
6- Water pipe
7- Two water tanks
8- Some wires
9- Wash hand basin
10- Two non return valve
11- 12V Battery
12- Regulated power supply
Software parts include:
1- Arduino IDE
2- fritzing software
The Arduino uno is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega328 (datasheet). It has 14
digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, 4 UARTs
(hardware serial ports), a 16 MHz crystal oscillator, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP
header, and a reset button. It contains everything needed to support the micro-controller; simply
connect it to a computer with a USB cable or power it with a AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get
started. The Mega is compatible with most shields designed for the Arduino Duemilanove or
Diecimila. [9].

A DC pump motor is a device that moves fluids in a variety of ways by using DC currents. DC
pumps come in many different design types, each with its own method of operation, advantages,
and preferred [3].

3.1 System Flow Chart of smart hand washing machine

Figure 2 System Flow Chart of Automatic hand washing machine

This research uses the ultrasonic sensor (HC-SR04) to detect the presence of a hand. When it
detects presence of hand below 10cm, it gives signal to relay 1 that results in triggering the first
water pump, liquid of soap solution starts flowing through the valve (i.e pink coloured tap), it
pours the liquid on the hand for 3 second and stop. It will delay for two (2) seconds thus allowing
the user to rub and squeeze hands for five seconds, then it gives signal to relay 2 that results in
triggering the second water pump which was immersed in the water tank, this supply clean water
for you to wash your hand. The water stopped immediately after fifteen (15) seconds.

Regulated supply provides the voltage and current re-quired for effective performance of the
system, from the 12V DC power source and then Microcontroller and DC water pump are fed
with regulated DC power supply, which is 5V and 12V respectively.

This system can be applied in hospital, schools, banks, offices, home, shopping malls etc

3.2 System Description

A prototype of the smart hand washing machine was developed using an ultrasonic Sensor as
input to detect presence of hands; Arduino Mega 2560 as controller; DC water pumd as outputs.
These components were connected as shown in Figure 1. Once the hands were detected by
ultrasonic Sensor, it sent digital signal 1 to the microcontroller. The microcontroller then started
the program to control water pump,

Fig3. The Smart hand washing machine

The electrical circuit were then integrated with the designed Housing in Figure 3 to result a smart
hand washing machine as shown in Figure 3. The case was made using polished flywood as it is
cheap and easy material to cut and screwed. The water’s inlet used a standard connector of PVC
pipe. The soap container used a plastic water tank.

4.0 TESTING RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Three tests are performed on the developed smart hand washing machine, which are Verification,
Validation and User Participation Test.

4.1 Verification on tap outlet functionality

The verification on outlet functionality was performed to find the performance of: (1) Distance
of ultrasonic sensor. The result in Table 1 shows the minimum distance that can be detected by
the sensor was 3 cm and the maximum distance was 80 cm. This distance was reasonable
distance to detect presence of human hands beneath the tap. (2) DC water pump connectivity.

Table 1. Distance of ultrasonic sensor

Distance (cm) DC water pump

4 ON
>4 OFF
4.2 Validation by health practitioner

In Validation Test, Health practitioner was asked to perform hand-wash using the developed
smart hand washing machine. The result showed that it was conformed the hand-wash standard
procedure which emphasizes usage of soap and rubbing duration of 20 seconds.

4.3. USER-PARTICIPATION TEST

The User-Participation Test consisted of two test, which were: (1) Observation on users’
execution time of handwash-ing using conventional tap with separated soap and the developed
smart tap outlet; (2) Usability Evaluation by users using USE Questionnaire. Total 50
respondents range from teenager to elderly people was gathered in correlation with the definition
of users in

“What is Wanted”.
4.3.1 Observation on user’s execution time

In the test, users were asked to wash their hands using a conventional outlet and then a smart
outlet. Since there are no guidance for exact duration of rubbing in the convention-al outlet, users
scrubbed their hands varied in 4 to 44 seconds (average 15.4 seconds). This duration is less than
the standard. Whilst, the automatic outlet guided the users to scrub their hands in exactly 20
seconds in accordance with the standard rules. The smart outlet was also successfully forced the
users to wash their hands with soap. They also directly scrubbed their hands with the soap
spontaneously.

4.3.2 Usability evaluation using USE questioner

USE questionnaire is generally used to evaluate user attitudes towards a variety of consumer
products using three dimensions: Usefulness, Satisfaction, and Easiness (Ease of Use and Ease of
Learn) [17]. It consists of 30 questions where users answer using Likert Scale of 1 to 7. This
scale is often found in the questionnaire to facilitate the respondents to give answers in structured
and limited options [18]. The scale used in this test is a scale of 1 (strongly disagree), 2
(disagree), 3 (rather disagree), 4 (doubtful), 5 (rather agree), 6 (agree), and 7 (strongly agree). A
statistical parameter of mode is commonly used to analyse categorical data from Likert scale as
used in the USE questionnaire.

The result shows a mode of grade 7 for Usefulness, grades 6 for Satisfaction, grades 6 for Easy
to Use, and grade 6 for Easy to Learn. The mode of all usability criteria is grade 6 which mean
users “agree” that the smart outlet has maximized its usability.

4.4 CONCLUSION

. In this paper, a fully smart hand washing machine for hand-washing has been developed using
Interaction Design process to maximize its serviceability. The analysis on Verification,
Validation and User-Participation test has shown that it functions well to force users to use soap
in their handwashing routine and to bush in 20 seconds as well as surpass the usability in terms
of Usefulness, Gratification and Easiness. Further development should focus on optimizing the
hardware, housing and electrical source. An addition of dryer should also be designed to meet
the hand-washing standard that includes drying activity.
 REFERENCES

[1] D. Pittlet, WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care: a Summary. World Health
Organization Patient Safety: University of Geneva Hospitals (2009)

[2] WHO/UNICEF (2019). Joint Monitoring Program. www.washdata.org.

[3] Anonymous, “DC Fan Motor”, “DC Pump Motor”, “DC Motor”, Digital Key Electro
Components Company, http://www.digikey.com

[4] WHO (2020). Interim recommendations on obligatory hand hygiene against transmission
of COVID-19. Link: https://www.who.int/who-documents-detail/interim
recommendations-on-obligatory-hand hygiene-against transmission-of-covid-19

[5] A. Bianchi, D. M, WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care: a Summary. World
Health Organization Patient Safety: University of Geneva Hospitals (2009)

[6] E. Stanley and Sr. Flowers, Automatic Hand Washing and Drying Machine, U.S. Patent
US5924148A (1999)

[7] Mayo Clinic Staff, Hand-washing: Do’s and Don’ts. Healthy Life-style Adult Health
(2014)

[8] M. Burton, E. Cobb, P. Donachie, G. Judah, V. Curtis and W. P. Schmidt, The Effect of
Handwashing with Water or Soap on Bacterial Contamination of hands, In International
Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 8(1), 97-104 (2011)

[9] “ARDUINO Mega 2560”, http://www.ARDUINO.com

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