A low‐cost, open-source ventilator for patients with COVID‐19
A team of researchers from UPC BarcelonaTech, Spain, and UTFPR Brazil developed a low-cost, open-source ventilator to treat COVID-19 patients. It is well-known that ventilators for COVID-19 patients are expensive, and this team's goal was to produce an affordable-price device. This page describes the development of this project.
Mechanical ventilators have been in short supply worldwide. These ventilators help patients to survive due to the illness condition caused by the COVID-19. The team has developed a low‐cost, open-source mechanical ventilator as an attempt to help those patients. If you want to support us in this research, please email us at avargas@utfpr.edu.br
More about the project
More details about the project are available in the paper "Low-Cost, Open-Source Mechanical Ventilator with Pulmonary Monitoring for COVID-19 Patients", Actuators, 2020 - click here.
The next video shows three operating scenarios: one healthy and the other two with emulated failures. The equipment works with a 'failure' detection scheme. The scheme deploys the Clegg integrator method combined with a low-pass filter (see results in graphs below).
The data shown in Figs. 1 and 2 represent what can be seen in the video: raw data (i.e., collected signals) and the corresponding processed ones. The collected signals are very similar (Fig. 1). It is hard to see whether a signal comes from a healthy or unhealthy patient. The Clegg integrator method with a low-pass filter classifies what signals come from a healthy patient against what come from an healthy patient (Fig. 2). The equipment uses a unity of Raspberry Pi as the "brain". This page will include (soon) more documents, like the electronics, details over the sensor of pressure, the mechanical parts, and the source-code made in Python.
Questions?
Are you interested in our project? You can send us a message at avargas@utfpr.edu.br
Research team responsible for this effort
Leonardo Acho
Hi. My Name is Leonardo Acho. I am a full-time Professor at UPC-Terrassa, Spain. I've been working at UPC since 2007 realizing research on Electronics and Control Systems, and teaching mathematics topics to undergraduate students. I completed my Ph.D. in Electronics Engineering at the Ensenada Research Center (CICESE) in México, in 2001, and spent a year as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech, Spain. You can find more details about me in my webpage.
Gisela Pujol-Vázquez
Hi. My Name is Gisela Pujol-Vázquez. I am a full-time Professor at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech (UPC), Spain. I’ve obtain my degree in Mathematics from Universitat de Barcelona (1995), Spain, and my PhD at UPC (2004). I completed my Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics at ONERA (Toulouse, France), in 2004 and CITEDI (Mexico) in 2008. I’ve been working at UPC since 1995 realizing research on Control Systems, and teaching mathematics topics to undergraduate students. You can find more details about me in my webpage.
Alessandro N. Vargas
Hi. My Name is Alessandro N. Vargas. I am a full-time Professor at UTFPR, Brazil. I've been working at UTFPR since 2007, doing research on Control Systems and teaching engineering-related topics for undergraduate and graduate students. I completed my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil, in 2009, and spent a year as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech, Spain, in 2014-2015. I have been a Visiting Professor at the Arizona State University (ASU), USA, and a Visiting Professor at the Politecnico di Milano (Polimi), Italy. You can find more details about me in my webpage.