Breathney: A modular design toolbox for an affordable ventilator with full functionality

The Covid-19 pandemic is still progressing globally and a small but significant fraction of patients need mechanical ventilation at some point. Although some countries have sufficient ventilators, there are indications of a future global shortage of such devices. Medtronic released documents for their ventilator, showing a global urgent need. Rapidly prototyped, industrially manufactured ventilators can help alleviate this shortage.

With crucial support from UZ Brussels , Flanders Make, Audi and other partners, a team of 40 students, alumni, staff and external experts at the Fablab Brussels have recently designed and prototyped a ventilator that has been produced industrially and is currently being tested extensively.

We intend to contribute to the world-wide ventilator effort in the following way:

• Perform the scientific experiments to investigate and iteratively increase the level of compliance with published requirements (e.g. https://tinyurl.com/wfqtk4w)
• Demonstrate that a fully functional ventilator can be mass-produced (>100 units daily for a mid-sized facility in e.g. automotive sector) with minimal pressure on the medical supply chain, by maximally sourcing components from non-medical sectors, at a well-documented unit cost that is affordable compared to conventional ventilators (without being low-cost per se)
• Make available a toolbox for all aspects of ventilator system (mechanical, electrical, sensors, control, interface). The different aspects are designed in a modular manner so that e.g. the control unit can be used with both pump-based and pneumatic approaches
• Make the design open-source. Share the design and documentation. Assist other groups worldwide in adapting design and setting up local production

Learn more at the project’s website.