The Indian Institute of Science has successfully completed the prototype of an indigenously developed Intensive Care Unit grade ventilator in about two months. Supporting both invasive and non-invasive ventilation, it uses only components made in India or easily available in domestic supply chains and was developed by its PRAANA team.
The team took about 35 days to go from the drawing board to a proof-of-concept system, and then to build a working prototype in another two weeks.
About Project PRAANA
Project Praana (Sanskrit/Kannada for “breath/life”) is a voluntary prototype ventilator design effort run by a group of engineers primarily associated with IISc.
It was started by IISc faculty members Gaurab Banerjee, Duvvuri Subrahmanyam, T V Prabhakar and Pratikash Panda, Bangalore-based engineer Manas Pradhan, and retired IISc professor H S Jamadagni. Many volunteers helped in the project, including physicians Dr Supreet Khare, Dr Sriram Sampath, and Dr Krishna Prasad.
The desired output of this project is a working prototype, for which the design and specifications can be freely shared with as many manufacturers in India as possible, on an open-source basis. This is a purely voluntary effort to help the nation in a time of crisis. The project has no commercial intent. In the COVID-19 crisis, if a worst-case scenario is assumed, about 0.006% of the cases will require critical care needing access to ventilators.
Project Praana aims to use components available in India to build a mechanical ventilator, whose production can be rapidly scaled up. Praana is designing the system as much as possible with components used in the automotive and water filter industries in India. If necessary, some critical sensors deployed in space and defense applications can also be repurposed for this emergency.
The main aspects of the design are: easy sourcing of components in India, quick manufacturability and simple user interface.
“We are now actively exploring options to collaborate with an industry partner to further co-develop the prototype into a field-ready product, Subrahmanyam said.
The project received internal support from IISc, external funding from the office of the Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India, and a Corporate Social Responsibility contribution from the State Bank of India Foundation. Narayana Health, Bengaluru, provided medical testing equipment for verification of the ventilator performance, the IISC said.