How Udow made the user experience better while maintaining the security of medicines
An example of the importance of user experience and GUI to medical devices.
Udow is a Brazilian technology company focused on the security of medicines. Udow recognizes the importance of having controlled access to medicines in hospital units. So, their job is to create smart types of equipment that give access to these products only to the right person, at the right moment. Their equipment locks and unlocks cabinets and drawers when access to the medicines is really necessary. There are many risks when the medicines aren’t properly stored, so that’s the problem Udow purpose to solve.
These solutions are embedded systems and have different kinds of user experiences. In this successful case, we are going to talk about two products: a real stat cabinet and a mobile cabinet to store medicines. Both of them have a touchscreen display that nowadays uses the TotalCross framework for the GUI (Graphical User Interface) development.
Udow products overview
Stat cabinet to store medicines
According to the title, this equipment is used to store medicines, but on a large scale. This product stores the biggest part of medicines available in a hospital or other kinds of medical unit. Professionals access the medicines by login, using password or biometry. The Graphical User Interface runs on a Raspberry Pi board and allows only professionals with registered login giving access to medicines. After closing the door, the system comes to the initial stage, with the doors locked.
Mobile cabinet to transport medicines
So much similar to the first project, the main difference is that equipment transports medicines inside the medical unit, taking them for patient’s rooms, for example. The process is the same: the professional accesses the medicines after doing the login, with password or biometry. In this one, the product can detect the right patient before giving the access, so, like this is possible to open only the right draw, with the right medicines to this patient. Both equipment store data such as the date and hour of the access, medicines movement and even a video (made by a cam) of the person getting the medicines.
These are the main characteristics of Udow’s embedded projects. So, let’s see which problems they are dealing with and how they solve them.
Problem: footprint and performance
In the beginning, the embedded system software was coded with Java and the GUI with JavaFX. The Udow team found that the user interface was consuming so much CPU processing and also the footprint took a lot of memory. These points were overheating the board, so this became a challenge to be solved.
They tested many options of Virtual Machines, but the problem persisted. They tried the newest version of JavaFX, but without success. Another test was to try Windows Forms, using C# and Mono. The performance gets better (finally), but the Udow team didn’t like the GUI because they were targeting modern elements and a better user experience. So, the problem was partially solved.
Choosing TotalCross framework to build a new GUI
The engineer responsible for the project, Mr. Valdinei, discovered the TotalCross framework for embedded systems on a Toradex’s Webinar. Toradex is a SoM (system on module) provider recognized by its high quality boards.
According to the Udow engineering team, after running some tests with TotalCrossthe results exceeded expectations. So, to deploy the GUI application, they count on the TotalCross support team and community. In this way, it’s possible to quickly understand the framework and build the application. According to Valdinei, the project isn’t complete yet, but they already have crucial requirements running, with low footprint and high performance.
How they integrated the GUI with the embedded software?
As they are using an external database, they have chosen the Java Virtual Machine. But, the expectation for the future is migrating to web service using the TotalCross Virtual Machine.
Now, the VM class integrates the GUI with two external elements. The first one is the SPI communication, responsible for triggering the engines (for example, locking and unlocking the doors/drawers). This was coded using Python. So the VM class calls for the Python scripts. The second one is serial communication, responsible to read RFID and biometry. For this, they use C#, so the VM calls the C# executable files.
Concluding, all the software which doesn’t use Java, is integrated with the VM class.
Udow is a successful case using TotalCross
After the COVID outbreak, the number of GUI projects for medical devices is going exponentially, and day by day, these sort of devices require better user experiences, to guarantee secure and quick work. Having worked with the Udow team helped us to understand a lot of things about hospital units and how many new embedded solutions can be created to improve them.
If you are facing similar problems in your embedded project, please let us know.
