GOALI: MEMS Based Sensors and Actuators for Medical and Biological Applications

0201773刘易斯机械呼吸机在挽救肺功能障碍患者生命方面发挥着至关重要的作用。急救人员每天都使用紧急手动复苏器来抢救创伤患者。为了维持生命，这些设备必须感知呼吸压力。电流压力传感器的尺寸和电力要求将压力传感限制在机器内部和患者呼吸道的远端。这可能会严重降低呼吸机的效率，甚至造成患者创伤，因为自然的呼吸道解剖变异会造成不可预测的压力损失。此外，由空气污染和哮喘引起的慢性肺部疾病正在增加。为了了解和量化对呼吸的影响，需要更好的传感器。这项目标计划专注于设计、制造和测试体内新型的微电子机械系统(MEMS)压力和流量传感器，这些传感器完全基于可以部署到呼吸道中的光学元件，例如可以部署到气管内管、鼻罩、呼吸机和复苏器中。该研究团队包括三个学术单位和三个行业合作伙伴之间的合作，将在使用纯光学技术检测传感器激活效应方面进行基础研究，并将开发新的光学MEMS生物传感器的设计、分析、测试、校准和生产实践。将开发新的数字信号处理方法，以获得所需的测量精度和范围。作为推广计划的一部分，Goali团队将1)开发一门关于MEMS传感器和执行器分析、设计、原型和应用的新设计课程，包括生物医学；2)开发可在互联网上用于行业工程师和学生培训的课件；3)在行业合作伙伴中提供两个现场工业研讨会。

0201773LewisMechanical ventilators play critical roles in saving lives of patients with pulmonary dysfunction. Emergency manual resuscitators are used daily by paramedics to revive trauma patients. For life support these devices must sense respiratory pressures. Size and electric power requirements of current pressure transducers restrict sensing of pressures to points within the machine and distal to patient airways. This can severely degrade the efficacy of the ventilator or even create patient trauma, as the natural airway anatomical variability creates unpredictable pressure losses. Moreover, chronic pulmonary illnesses due to air pollution and asthma are increasing. To understand and quantify the effects on respiration, better sensors are needed.This GOALI proposal focuses on designing, fabricating and testing in vivo novel microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) pressure and flow sensors based purely on optics that can be deployed into the airways, e.g. into endotracheal tubes, nasal masks, ventilators and resuscitators. The research team, which includes collaborations between three academic units and three industrial partners, will perform fundamental research in detecting sensor activation effects using purely optical techniques and will develop new design, analysis, testing, calibration, and production practices for optical MEMS biosensors. New digital signal processing approaches will be developed to obtain required accuracies and ranges of measurement. .As part of the outreach plan, the GOALI team will 1) develop a new design course on MEMS sensor and actuator analysis, design, prototyping, and applications, including biomedical, 2) develop courseware that can be used over the internet for training of industry engineers and students and 3) offer two industrial seminars on-site at industrial partners.