Medicine dispensing machine using raspberry pi and arduino controller

Accessibility to basic healthcare is an important cornerstone of development towards building a healthy future. This paper presents a machine designed to provide such healthcare at areas where having a medical store may not be feasible or possible. It allows the user to select a medicine, pay the required amount after which it verifies the amount received and dispenses the medicine. The amount is authenticated and identified using an image processing unit controlled by a Raspberry Pi, a credit card sized controller capable of processing still images. The payment module and medicine dispensing module are controlled by the Arduino, a microcontroller based development board. The communication between the Raspberry Pi and Arduino controllers is serial, through a USB cable. The machine is powered by a regular power outlet of 230V (alternating current). Due to the physical and infrastructural limitations in establishing a medical store at remote areas, this machine has been designed to be a standalone unit, requiring minimum supervision to operate for long periods of time.