Proposal

• Abstract / Elevator Pitch:

Medication non-adherence is one of the most persistent and costly challenges in modern healthcare, contributing to nearly 125,000 preventable deaths and over $300 billion in avoidable healthcare costs annually in the United States alone. Elderly patients, individuals managing chronic illnesses, and those on complex multi-drug regimens are especially vulnerable to missed or incorrect doses — not out of negligence, but due to cognitive fatigue, confusing schedules, and a lack of timely reminders. The Smart Pill Reminder and Dispenser System is an embedded solution designed to directly address this gap by automating medication scheduling, alert delivery, and physical dispensing in a single cohesive device.

The system is built around a microcontroller running a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS), ensuring that timing-critical tasks such as scheduled reminders and Bluetooth command processing are handled with deterministic precision. Users or caregivers configure medication schedules wirelessly via a Bluetooth-connected interface, specifying pill times and associating each medication with a color-coded LED indicator. When a scheduled dose is due, the system triggers a buzzer alert and lights the corresponding LED to guide the patient to the correct pill — eliminating confusion in multi-medication scenarios. A SysTick-driven clock backbone guarantees that reminders fire accurately regardless of other system activity.

• Project Objectives & Scope:

1. RTOS Integration: Deploy FreeRTOS with clearly separated tasks for: reminder scheduling, Bluetooth command handling, alert output (LED and buzzer).
2. SysTick-Based Scheduling: Implement a SysTick interrupt-driven timekeeping backbone that accurately tracks time and triggers medication reminder events at user-defined intervals.
3. Bluetooth Command Interface (UART): Accept and parse wireless commands over Bluetooth to allow users to: set or update pill reminder times,associate a reminder with a specific pill color, query the current schedule.
4. Color-Coded LED Alerts (GPIO): Upon a scheduled reminder firing, illuminate the LED color corresponding to the commanded pill color (e.g., Red LED → red pill compartment), guiding the patient to the correct medication.
5. Buzzer Notification (GPIO): Sound a buzzer alert alongside the LED when a reminder triggers, with the alert persisting until acknowledged or timing out after a configurable window.
6. Multi-Medication Support: Support scheduling for at least 3 independent medications with distinct times and color mappings concurrently.

• Stretch Goals

1. Acknowledgement Button: Add a physical GPIO button the patient presses to confirm pill intake, updating the confirmed-taken status and silencing the active alert.
2. Missed Dose Escalation: Implement a secondary alert tier — if the patient does not acknowledge a reminder within a defined window (e.g., 5 minutes), the buzzer escalates (louder/faster pattern) and optionally re-alerts at a set interval.
3. Companion Mobile Interface: Develop a minimal Android or cross-platform BLE app (or a serial terminal UI) to provide a friendlier interface for schedule configuration and log viewing beyond raw UART commands.