IncuSense: IoT-Enabled Wireless Long-Term Multiparametric Cell Culture Incubator Monitoring System

Area of Science:

• Biotechnology
• Biomedical Engineering
• Environmental Monitoring

Background:

• Cell-culture incubators are vital for in vitro research but susceptible to environmental fluctuations, impacting experimental reproducibility and sample integrity.
• Current monitoring solutions often have limitations such as wired infrastructure, bulky components, and integration challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop IncuSense, a miniaturized, wireless, battery-powered platform for real-time monitoring of temperature, humidity, and CO2 in incubators.
• To address self-heating issues caused by continuous microcontroller operation and Wi-Fi power consumption.
• To validate the platform's accuracy, precision, and long-term stability for environmental standardization in biomedical workflows.

Main Methods:

• Integration of a photoacoustic NDIR sensor and microcontroller for data acquisition and wireless transmission.
• Implementation of an intermittent power-cycling strategy to reduce power consumption and mitigate self-heating.
• Benchmarking against NIST-traceable sensors and conducting a 100-day deployment in a CO2 incubator.

Main Results:

• The intermittent power-cycling strategy reduced average current draw by over 90-fold, suppressing thermal drift.
• IncuSense demonstrated high accuracy and precision in temperature, humidity, and CO2 measurements, comparable to NIST-traceable standards.
• The 100-day deployment confirmed long-term stability and the system's ability to detect transient environmental fluctuations.

Conclusions:

• IncuSense provides a compact, cost-effective, and adaptable solution for continuous, long-term environmental monitoring in incubators.
• The platform facilitates environmental standardization in biomedical and biomanufacturing workflows, supporting reproducible research and new approach methods (NAMs).