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.


Mark Runacres
Mark Runacres
Professor of Fluid Dynamics

My research interests include unsteady fluid dynamics, wind energy and models (physical and data-driven) of fluid systems

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