José Príncipe, Ph.D., distinguished professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Florida, was recently awarded an NSF grant in support of the development of a low-cost smart multi-patient ventilator system. The proposal, “RAPID: Inexpensive, rapidly manufacturable respiratory monitor to provide safe emergency ventilation during COVID19 pandemic,” provides a portable respiratory monitoring system with several key advantages:
- Safe, remote, monitoring for ventilated patients in isolation rooms—minimizing use of PPE and exposure of clinicians to the virus
- Safe and effective use of non-traditional (emergency) ventilators, assembled from inexpensive, off-the-shelf components
- Safe and effective ventilation of multiple patients with a single FDA-cleared ventilator
- Novel sensor-level signal processing, custom algorithms, and machine learning will enable the collection of data and will provide decision support in a rapidly changing environment
