Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Apr:9:e00196.
doi: 10.1016/j.ohx.2021.e00196. Epub 2021 Apr 8.

COVENT-Tester: A low-cost, open source ventilator tester

Affiliations

COVENT-Tester: A low-cost, open source ventilator tester

Tomy Abuzairi et al. HardwareX. 2021 Apr.

Abstract

COVENT-Tester (COVID-19 VENTilator Tester) is a low-cost and open source ventilator tester developed to calibrate the output of medical ventilators, including tidal volume, inspiratory pressure, and oxygen concentration. Currently, there are several open-source ventilator testers, however, existing open-source ventilator testers are unable to measure oxygen concentration. Conversely, commercial ventilator testers with the capacity to measure tidal volume, inspiratory pressure, and oxygen concentration, are very costly. The COVENT-Tester was therefore designed to be low-cost, by using Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components, to assist the open source community for rapidly manufactured pandemic ventilators. In addition, the COVENT-Tester measurement's validation results show the tester has good accuracy.

Keywords: 3-D print; COTS; COVID-19; Low-cost; Medical hardware; Open source; Pandemic; Ventilator tester.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

None
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
(a) COVENT-Tester block diagram. (b) Detail parts of the COVENT-Tester: 1) 3-D print sensor mounting, 2) oxygen sensor, 3) pressure sensor, 4) flow-rate sensor, 5) OLED display, 6) ADC 16-bit, 7) ESP32 microcontroller, 8) tactile switches, 9) resistor, 10) flow-meter sensor connection, 11) pressure sensor connection, and 12) oxygen sensor connection.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
COVENT-Tester operational block diagram.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
COVENT-Tester firmware main algorithm.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
GetData function algorithm.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
OLEDdisplay function algorithm.
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
ChangeDisp function algorithm.
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
(a) 3-D print of the mounting sensor and hose adapter. (b) Connection between the mounting sensor and hose adapter (red circle). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
Fig. 8
Fig. 8
The COVENT-Tester’s electronic system. (a) Schematic circuit. (b) PCB Board of electronic component.
Fig. 9
Fig. 9
Physical sensor connection on the 3-D print of the COVENT-Tester sensor.
Fig. 10
Fig. 10
The COVENT-Tester’s inlet and outlet connection.
Fig. 11
Fig. 11
Measurement result of the COVENT-Tester displayed on the OLED. (a) The current pressure (P), current flow rate (Q), and current oxygen concentration (O%). (b) The average oxygen concentration (FiO2). (c) The peak inspiratory pressure (IP) and peak end expiratory pressure (EP). (d) The current flow rate (Q) and tidal volume (V).
Fig. 12
Fig. 12
Validation results of the tidal volume.
Fig. 13
Fig. 13
Validation results of the PIP.
Fig. 14
Fig. 14
Validation results of the oxygen concentration.

References

    1. World Health Organization, Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Situation reports, 2020. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/weekly-epidemiological-update---... (accessed December 25, 2020).
    1. Zhou P., Yang X.-L., Wang X.-G., Hu B., Zhang L., Zhang W., Si H.-R., Zhu Y., Li B., Huang C.-L., Chen H.-D., Chen J., Luo Y., Guo H., Jiang R.-D., Liu M.-Q., Chen Y., Shen X.-R., Wang X.i., Zheng X.-S., Zhao K., Chen Q.-J., Deng F., Liu L.-L., Yan B., Zhan F.-X., Wang Y.-Y., Xiao G.-F., Shi Z.-L. A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin. Nature. 2020;579(7798):270–273. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2012-7. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. MacLaren G., Fisher D., Brodie D. Preparing for the most critically Ill patients with COVID-19: the potential role of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. JAMA. 2020;323(13):1245. doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.2342. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Pearce J.M. A review of open source ventilators for COVID-19 and future pandemics. F1000Res. 2020;9:218. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.22942.1. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Mora S., Duarte F., Ratti C. Can open source hardware mechanical ventilator (OSH-MVs) initiatives help cope with the COVID-19 health crisis? Taxonomy and state of the art. HardwareX. 2020;8:e00150. doi: 10.1016/j.ohx.2020.e00150. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources