An emergency ventilator originally designed to treat COVID-19 patients has been re-imagined in the form of a portable, easy to use, low cost field ventilator by innovative engineering company Supacat.
Supacat provides engineering services to a range of military and civilian customers within Australia and Europe. Its core capabilities include platform and system integration design, prototype development and high end dynamic structural analysis.
The coronavirus pandemic inspired Supacat to start working on the project to design and make a simple ventilator as an answer to, what was, a potentially life threatening shortage of ventilators in Australia.
Supacat conducted a market survey and found an open source design for a ventilator by M.I.T, called the E-vent that fit the criteria and could serve as the starting point for a design. A team of in-house experts and existing teaming partners quickly gathered to collaborate on the research and development to produce a working prototype.
As time went on, it became apparent that the Australian health care system was able to manage the virus and built a sufficient stockpile of hospital grade ventilators. As a result of this, Supacat switched its attention to developing the ventilator as a field ventilator that has utility outside a hospital environment.
“The idea of the field emergency ventilator is that it mimics the use of a manual ventilator with a higher degree of accuracy and consistency. The field ventilator is easily transportable, highly portable and can be used straight out of the box” said Michael Halloran, Supacat Managing Director.
“We’ve demonstrated the idea with a production-ready prototype. The prototype is a fully contained unit which includes the mechanisms, control system and necessary medical bags and tubing”.
Mr. Halloran was pleased with the collaborative effort by Supacat employees and Supacat Team Australia partners, “when we approached some of our existing partners to see if they would be interested in supporting the effort, the answer was always yes”.
The field ventilators can be manufactured quickly and cost effectively right here in Australia. Supacat is looking for opportunities to trial the ventilator as it believes there is great potential for it to become an essential piece of medical apparatus used to support medics away from established hospitals and medical centres.
Supacat would like to thank Pelican Australia, Tectonica and WE Platt who collaborated on the project.
The Supacat Emergency Field Ventilator (EFV) was inspired by, and is based on, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology E-VENT project. Further information and support on this open source design can be found at the MIT Emergency Ventilator Project website https://emergency-vent.mit.edu/.
Please see our short film showcasing the project:
About Supacat PTY:
Supacat was established in Australia in 2012 and has rapidly grown as a Compact Prime, delivering development, acquisition and support programs to the Commonwealth and global defence primes. Supacat specialises in the design and development of high mobility vehicles for specialist forces around the world. In addition to its world class mobility products, Supacat provides engineering services to a range of military and civilian customers within Australia, Asia, North America and Europe. Its core capabilities include platform and system integration design, prototype development and high end dynamic structural analysis.
For more information on Supacat visit: supacat.com
For further details please contact: Marketing Manager, Sarina Brunott on Aus 0402 2761 36, or call Head of Marketing and Sales Nicky Yeoman at Supacat UK 01404 892 581