A Wireless Embedded Device for Personalized Ultraviolet Monitoring

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 device, which can play a fundamental role in skin cancer prevention by providing measurements of UV radiation intensities and corresponding recommendations. This paper highlights the development and initial validation of a wireless and portable embedded device 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 displays the amount of UV received over a certain course of time, from a single day to a month.