Design and Prototyping of a Low-Cost Portable Mechanical Ventilator.

This paper describes the design and prototyping of a low-cost portable mechanical ventilator for use in mass casualty cases and resource-poor environments. The ventilator delivers breaths by compressing a conventional bag-valve mask (BVM) with a pivoting cam arm, eliminating the need for a human operator for the BVM. An initial prototype was built out of acrylic, measuring and weighing 9 lbs.