This project was started on March 17th by a smallish group of engineers at Fablab Brussels as a 4-day rush to replicate the MIT-ambubag.
This project has grown into a 50+ team, non-profit effort to develop a rapid-manufacturable, open-source ventilator for COVID-19.
The team currently consists out of mechanical & electronic engineers, a doctor-on-site, medical advisors, a group of programmers & reinforcement from experienced R&D-engineers from Flanders Make.
What we cannot get are medically-certified pressure sensors in large quantities, or flow sensors meant for ventilators.
Those sensors are sold out & have a 10-week lead time.
But you can find good pressure sensors, used in other industries.
Mouser has 50’000+ pressure Bosch sensor chips on stock. Next day delivery.
Car manufacturers have DC-motors in stock in huge numbers.
There is no shortage of laptop computers or microcontrollers.
The goal of this project is to duplicate full functionality of a medical ventilator, with sufficient accuracy, robustness and reliability,
while selecting only parts that can be quickly sourced in large volume from non-medical industrial sectors.
It needs to be affordable, yes. But the goal is not lowest price.
The goal is a redesign-from-scratch of an existing technology for mass rapid manufacture.
Beta Series 1, as of April 4th, features:
- accurate pressure & volume control
- p-, V- and flow-graphs in a graphical interface
- redundant pressure sensors
- pressure control mode, volume control mode
- full user-configurable pressure curve (Ppeak, Passist, RR, IE, ramp)
- breathing detection & breathing assist mode
- alarms on configurable error ranges for achieved pressures and volumes
- battery backup
- a mature & robust pump design that can be rapidly manufactured from laser-cut aluminium sheets
- a pump design with sufficient power that has no issues achieving the highest pressures, volumes and respiratory rates specified in the MHRA emergency certification requirements.
- an electronics architecture where the main microcontroller and the connected PC each act as each others watchdog and give an alarm when the other one stops working.
- possibility to enable remote monitoring of multiple machines
Prototype 7 – April 2nd
