Design and Fabrication of Open Source Ventilator Based on Arduino

Abstract

COVID-19 global pandemic was a very unfortunate situation and world was not ready for it. Ventilator is a very vital medical equipment which was needed as a breathing aid for the patients, because their lungs were incapable of inhaling and exhaling due to the infection spread in the lungs. Many people lost their lives because of the Ventilator shortages. As the cost of the ventilator was high and the manufacturing industries have run out of stock poor countries were not able to acquire the ventilators in large numbers. The project focuses on making of ventilator which is easily reproducible by anyone with very little knowledge of IT. And with the set of instruction and all the dimension and procedure it can be manufactured with high scale. The design has interchangeable parts and still the working of ventilator is not very much compromised compared to any modern-day ventilator. There is control of volume of air and breathing rate. The main focus of the project is keeping the cost low and less skill requirement for manufacturing and easy availability of parts irrespective of the region. The main parts of the model are Nema 17 stepper motor, arduino microcontroller, and ambu bag except this all the other parts are available in every corner of world. If government provides only stepper motor and microcontroller and ambu bag there will be no shortage of ventilator in poor regions of the world this simple step can save millions of lives. As the microcontroller and stepper motor availability is in abundance because it is regular product used for automation there will not be a shortage of it at any given time. And many people can survive till the supply of modern ventilator comes on track.