CONSTRUCTION OF A STRESS INDICATOR

BY

AKANNI AFOLABI SAMUEL

20CK027506

SUPERVISED BY ENGR. AFOLABI

ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

COVENANT UNIVERSITY
OTA.
IN THE FULFILLMENT OF THE COMPLETION OF EIE 413

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 DEDICATION
I dedicate this report to the giver of all knowledge and wisdom, Almighty God, who has given
me the strength, wisdom, and grace to write this report from the research to the components
provision, to the building of the project even until this time. I also want to dedicate this to my
parents, who have always shown me love and support as my Godsent help.

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I want to acknowledge God for His great grace and loving kindness in my life. I also want to
acknowledge Engr. Chris for taking the time to help me make this project a success. I also want
to express my gratitude to Engr. Daramola provided some of the components that were required.
I am also grateful. To my parents for being my guide all through these times.

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 ABSTRACT
Stress has widely become a disease these days. Stress could be defined as the body’s reaction
to any stimuli. That disturbs its equilibrium. It typically can be positive or negative doing the
most. Many people have sudden collapse and perhaps death because of the level of stress that
they operate in. Of course, little stress is good in the sense that it helps to meet deadlines, but if
stress becomes too much it is harmful to the health of the person involved.
Stress varies in each person following the mental state of each person. It operates in the
principle of GALVANIC SKIN RESPONSE. There are mainly two states of man. They are;
1. Normal State
2. Stressed State.
In my circuit, two LED colors are used to indicate the major level of stress in the person, Red,
and Green. Depending on the grip of the person and the change in the body’s resistance changes,
the LED changes their levels. This is useful to sense the skin’s response to the relaxation levels.
It. It is ideal for sensing small currents in low-input current applications.
So I will be constructing a stress indicator with. The use of the LM3915 and LED indicator
among other things.

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 TABLE OF CONTENT
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION TO THE PROJECT
1.1 AIM
1.2 OBJECTIVES
1.3 SCOPE

CHAPTER TWO
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW

CHAPTER THREE
3.0 DESCRIPTION OF COMPONENTS
3.1 FUNCTIONALITY

CHAPTER FOUR
4.0 RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
4.2 CHALLENGES
4.3 RECOMMENDATION

CHAPTER FIVE
5.0 CONCLUSION
5.1 REFERENCES

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LIST OF FIGURES
2.1 Stress Indicator Circuit Diagram
3.1 IC LM3195
3.2 Resistor
3.3 Battery
3.4 BC548
3.5 Capacitor

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 CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION

Since stress is a popular topic these days, there Is hardly a week that passes without hearing
about stress and adverse health effects. Stress is the consequence of the failure of an organism to
respond rightly to emotional or physical threats, whether it is actual or even imagined. A survey
by an NGO, Saarthak claims that among 30 companies 50 percent of the employees had stress in
some form, 20 percent had depression and 30per cent had problems like alcoholism or marital
discord. So, the condition of stress is quite astounding in India.
On the top of the list is work stress. According to surveys, forty percent of all office
employees admit to experiencing stress in the office and more than one-quarter even say it is the
biggest source of stress in their lives. It is common for these reasons:
• Being unhappy in your job
• Having a heavy workload or too much responsibility
• Working long hours
• Having poor management,
• unclear expectations of your work
• no say in the decision-making process
• Working under dangerous conditions
• Being insecure about your chance for advancement or risk of termination
• Having to give speeches in front of colleagues
• Facing discrimination or harassment at work
All these come, especially if your company isn’t supportive.
WHAT IS A STRESS INDICATOR
A Stress Indicator utilizes the property of skin resistance in determining the stress level
experienced by the human body. Skin resistance varies in different persons. Normal human
beings have a skin resistance of 2MΩ which drops to about 200kΩ. Thus increase in
conductivity is sensed and driven to show the visual LED indication. Through this project, I aim
at a cheaper stress meter.

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 CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE SURVEY

FIG 2.1 STRESS INDICATOR CIRCUIT

Based on the Literature survey I conducted, I have come across different circuits related
to stress indicators. This was my best bet to choose. This circuit has two touchpads, by placing
hands on it the LED runs a chaser pattern till it indicates the right level of stress of the user. The
circuit comprises a signal amplifier and analog display sections. Voltage variations from the
sensing pads are amplified by transistor BC548 (T1), which is configured as a common-emitter
amplifier. The base of T1 is connected to one of the touch pads through resistor R1 and to the
ground rail through potmeter VR1. By varying VR1, the sensitivity of T1 can be adjusted to the
desired level. Diode D1 maintains proper biasing of T1 and capacitor C1 keeps the voltage from
the emitter of T1 steady.
The amplified signal from transistor T1 is given to the input of IC LM3915 (IC1) through VR2.
IC LM3915 is a monolithic integrated circuit that senses analog voltage levels at its pin 5 and
displays them through LEDs providing a logarithmic analog display. It can drive up to ten LEDs
one by one in the dot/bar mode for each increment of 125 mV in the input. Here, we’ve used

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only five LEDs connected at pins 14 through 18 of IC1. LED1 glows when input pin 5 of IC1
receives 150 mV. LED5 glows when the voltage rises to 650 mV and LED5 flashes and
piezobuzzer PZ1 beeps when the stress level is high. Resistors R4 and R5 and capacitor C2 form
the flashing elements. Resistor R3 maintains the LED current at around 20 mA. Capacitor C3
should be placed close to pin 3 for the proper functioning of the IC. Zener diode ZD1 in series
with resistor R6 provides regulated 5V to the circuit.

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 CHAPTER THREE
DESCRIPTION OF COMPONENTS

s. No Component Value Quantity

1 IC LM3915 1

2 Resistors 1K, 470 ohms,470k 1,3,1

3 Electrolytic capacitors 100uF,10uF 1,2

4 Transistors BC547 1

5 Zeneer Diode 5.1V 1

6 Touchpads N/A 1

7 DC Supply 9V 1

8 LED N/A 1

9 Diode 1N41481 1

IC LM3915
It is a Monolithic integrated circuit that senses analog voltage levels and displays them
through LEDs providing a logarithmic analog display. It can drive up to ten LEDs one by one
for each increment of 125mV in the input.

Resistors:
They are used in the circuits to limit current, set bias levels, control gain in switching
components, x time constant, impedance matching and loading, voltage division, and
sometimes heat generation. Resistors used in the circuit are (470, 1.2k, 1k, 47 ohms)

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Battery;
There are primary and secondary batteries. Secondary batteries use renewable power systems
where as primary batteries allow the chemical process that provides the electrical energy to occur
once and then it is discharged.

Light Emitting Diodes:

They are a forward-biased P-N junction that emits visible light
when energized. The color of light emitted depends on the material for example, it emits
infrared radiation or invisible light, it emits red or green light, and emits red or yellow radiation
or
amber light. To choose LEDs for a particular application, one or more of the following points
have to be considered; wavelength of light emitted the required input power ef ciency, turn-on

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and turn-off time of the switching devices, circuit construction, light intensity, and brightness,
among others. The uses of LEDs include. They are also used in image-sensing circuits. LEDs are
used for numeric displays in hand-held portals

BC 548 Transistor;
The BC548 is a general-purpose NPN bipolar junction transistor commonly used in European
and American electronic equipment. It is notably often the rst type bipolar transistor hobbyists
encounter and is often featured in designs in hobby electronics magazines where a general-
purpose transistor is required.

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Capacitor;
The capacitor in Figure 10 is used in the circuit to store charges as an element of frequency
selectivity circuits and lters for coupling AC signals from one circuit to another and for
shunting unwanted signals to the ground (decoupling).

FUNCTIONALITY
A stress meter is a device used to measure the stress of the body depending upon the current flow
through our body. Our body resistance level varies with the stress of our body and mind. A
highly stressed body results in an increase in blood flow through our body mechanism which
results in an increase in ion concentration in our body and thus allows more current to flow
across our body. A stress-free human being has very resistance due to less blood flow and thus
results in less ion concentration in our body. Our project simply follows the principle of Ohm's
law and current flows through LED help in determining the stress by glowing different LEDs.

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 CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
The stress meter detects the resistance of the skin which is according to the mental stress
and gives a visual indication on an LED display. The Light light-emitting diodes on the stress
meter can be observed as stress level indicators from zero to 5 stress levels. The highest stress
level is indicated with a warning beep.
Since resistance varies inversely with stress. If the stress level is high, the skin o ers lower
resistance, while the resistance of a more relaxed person is relatively higher. Low resistance
comes as a result of a high supply of blood to the skin which occurs during high stress. This
increases the conductivity and permeability of the skin.
CHALLENGES
Some Challenges I Faced Include;
• Limited Time For The Project; The project was given a very limited time frame. I feel this did
not consider the fact that we were also to be engrossed in order things for other subjects and
even this subject as well. I feel this project should be given a semester ahead so approvals
can be gotten and the projects can have enough time allocation for the project.

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• Peculiarity Of The Idea: Because my Idea was not similar to that of anybody else I was
unable to share the idea with my colleagues I was forced to learn by trial and error and I
could not even get enough resources from most online websites that I visited.
• Soldering: Due to my lack of expertise in soldering I could not get my components
assembled correctly
RECOMMENDATION
• Time Limit Extension; I suggest that the time frame that is given for this work should be
extended by giving space for suggestions a semester before so students can start work as
soon as they resume the semester and it does not interfere with their tests in other courses
and this way, they can also nish up earlier.
• Teamwork: I feel students should be put in teams to bring up brilliant ideas, have
suggestions, and execute things more beautifully. I feel the saying” Two good heads are
better than one ” is very true when it comes to cases like this.

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References ;
Google, past mini-project reports

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