Updates

Ventilator Mainboard in Action

This board allows us to integrate a new, more powerful control processor, brings the Interface computer onto the board, and improves sensor filtering and actuator control.

Watch the video to see a basic prototype demonstrating closed-loop pressure control using the new processor and mainboard.

First Ventilator Mainboard

We're blinkin' lights! Serial #01 of the RespiraWorks Ventilator Mainboard has rolled off the line. We designed this circuit board to add much-needed capabilities to the ventilator prototype and to use as a development tool for our software team. This takes us one step closer to a fully-functional ventilator. Over 100 dedicated volunteers are working hard around the clock and around the world to make this happen.

CoVent-19 Challenge Finalist

RespiraWorks was chosen as one of seven finalists out of 200+ entries in the CoVent-19 challenge! As finalists, we will receive support from the CoVent challenge team by way of hardware testing capabilities, along with material support from sponsors of the challenge such as Sonos and McMaster-Carr.

The CoVent-19 Challenge is fostering the innovation of a rapidly deployable, minimum viable mechanical ventilator for patients with COVID-19 related ventilator-dependent lung injury. Their goal is to rapidly expand the capacity of hospitals, by expanding current ventilation abilities, in order to survive the peak of this pandemic.

Inspiration and exhaust valve design

Here is an inspiration and exhaust valve design we're evaluating, which might also prove useful as a quick-response means of throttling blower output. This valve allows for a quick pressure control response, which allows the ventilator to treat a wider range of patients with more diseased lungs (e.g. those with ARDS). Cost-effective solutions here are difficult: the valve must have a large orifice (>10 mm), a low response time, a lifetime in the millions of cycles, and must be compatible with oxygen.

Pictured here is the first draft of this design. The second draft features improved geometry and a beefier stop.

"Packaged" ventilator

Here we are buttoning up the first "packaged" version of the ventilator as part of our design for assembly. I'd say it still needs a revision or two, but it's starting to come together.

We have been developing the system by laying iterations out on a plank of wood. Because this is a compressor pneumatic design, the exact orientation of the parts has a lot of flexibility, and it's easier for an iteration to just fill up space so things don't have a tight fit and are easy to get at. But generally doctors and nurses prefer not to carry around a whole plank of wood when they need to move a ventilator, plus that makes the device hard to clean and easy to break. So one of the steps that requires some thought is how all the parts will fit in a proper box.

Stay tuned here for more updates.

- Ethan Chaleff, Lead Engineer

Alpha Build assembly

We're working on the first assembly of our "Alpha Build" prototypes, which have a similar layout to our final ventilator design. Once we've assembled and tested these prototypes, we'll take them to doctors in the Bay Area for medical and user feedback, as well as mailing a few prototypes to our remote team members to allow quicker validation of software development and hardware prototyping.

Custom PCB design begins

We have begun working to transition the breadboard electrical design of the ventilator prototype to a custom PCB. This will also allow us to add the filtering and protection hardware required for both patient safety and reliable ventilator function.

Protocol Labs Innovation Grant Winner

RespiraWorks has been selected as a recipient of the Protocol Labs Covid-19 innovation grant. We're aiming for a ventilator that is middle of the road: not a full-capability vent, but also not the cheapest possible thing. A ventilator that provides patient monitoring, adaptive ventilation strategies (initially targeting PRVC) backed by a quality design process. We think that we have a credible pathway to get there and so we're going to keep pushing forward. Support like this makes that dream closer to reality.