A Design and Construction of the Vibration Perception Threshold Measurement Device for Diabetes

The purpose of this study was to design and build a mechanical vibration assessment tool for diabetic patients’ peripheral nervous systems. There is a substantial correlation between peripheral sensory neuropathy and vibration perception threshold (VPT). Peripheral sensory neuropathy has been identified by VPT determination utilizing the VPT measurement instrument built for that purpose. The designed device can assist in determining the threshold and tracking any progressive changes or trends. This designed device consists of two main components: hardware and software. The hardware part includes a DC power supply circuit, an Arduino NANO, a display, an isolation MOSFET driver for the electrical isolation circuit, a transducer driver, and a transducer head. The software part uses C programming on the Arduino to generate signals and display the transducer supply voltage. The testing results consist of 1) the voltage settings results (5–30 volts) comparing the voltage values on the display between the designed device and a digital multimeter, which has an average error of 0.75%, 2) According to the transducer head pressing test results, the Vibrotest Digital Biothesiometer and the proposed device had different pressing weights of ±0.02 g, and 3) the electrical safety testing results of the designed device is in the standard of IEC60601-1. (IEC: International Electrotechnical Commission).