India Fights Coronavirus: IIT Kanpur Startup Develops Low Cost Ventilator Prototype

Amid the rising number of novel coronavirus cases in the country, a team of researchers at IIT Kanpur is said to have developed a low cost invasive ventilator that can be mass produced using indigenous components, report Times of India.

As per IIT Kanpur professors, due to local sourcing of components the ventilator will be made at a cost of Rs 70,000 while other variants of invasive ventilators are available at around Rs 4 lakh per unit in the market presently.

A prototype for the ventilator has been developed by “Nocca Robotics” - a startup incubated at the institute and run by four graduates Nikhil Kurele, Harshit Rathore, Tushar Agarwal and Abhishek Kulkarni.

As per report,a nine-member team, including doctors from Narayana Institute of Cardiac Sciences (NICS), Bangalore has been formed by IIT Kanpur to validate the prototype following which the start up will get around 1000 portable ventilators ready within a month.

It should be noted that ventilator are critical for survival of critically ill Covid-19 patients as they cannot breathe on their own. Amitabh Bandyopadhyay, in-charge of innovation and incubation, IIT-Kanpur, told TOI, "Air has to be delivered right into the lungs, which requires a tube to be inserted. Our device is an invasive ventilator.”

The device will not require any form of medical air and will be capable of operating on its own in ambient air. There will also be a provision for attaching oxygen cylinder, when required.

Additionally, the ventilator will be permanently connected to a mobile phone which will be used to control the device and display critical information. The ventilator will operate in pressure control mode in which inhalation could be patient-triggered or mechanical.