STTR Phase I: Design of a Handheld Multi-sensor Passive Pulmonary Function Testing Device

这项小企业技术转让（STTR）第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业影响是开发用于检测和诊断肺部疾病的肺功能测试设备。如今，全球有超过6.5亿人，占世界人口的近10%。美国人患有哮喘和慢性阻塞性肺病（COPD）等肺部疾病。目前，最完善的肺功能测试方法是肺活量测定法，这需要患者进行不自然的呼吸操作。此外，肺活量测定法不能检测某些患者群体的肺部状况。所提出的技术无需特殊的呼吸操作即可使用，并且比肺活量计可以区分更多的肺部疾病。由于拟议的设备可以在患者正常呼吸时使用，因此它也将满足目前服务不足的患者群体，例如幼儿和老年人，以检测和诊断肺部疾病。通过针对便携式外形因素，这项技术将使目前无法实现的即时肺部检测成为可能。拟议的项目将发展成为第一个手持式强制振荡技术（FOT）原理的充分研究，其中声压波通过口腔发送给患者。S肺和反射用来测量肺功能。因此，不需要患者进行特殊的呼吸操作。为了实现手持设备的外形，该团队提出了两个互补的创新。首先，该团队将开发一种新的相干多扬声器发射器，这将减少目前FOT实现中最大部件（即扬声器）的尺寸。为了取代能够在非常低的频率下产生足够大小的压力波的巨大扬声器，该团队建议使用许多带有特殊设计的输入信号的小型扬声器，以便它们在目的地连贯地添加。其次，该团队将开发相干多传感器接收器来测量来自患者的压力波。S型肺，其振幅通常很小，并且由于患者？年代的呼吸。该团队建议使用多个传感器来测量反射波的流量和压力，这样可以通过相干处理多个接收波形来提高接收的信噪比。

The broader impact/commercial impact of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project is development of a pulmonary function testing device for detection and diagnosis of pulmonary conditions. Today more than 650 million globally, nearly 10% of the world?s population, suffers from lung conditions like Asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Currently, the most well-established method for lung function testing is spirometry, which requires the patient to conduct an unnatural breathing maneuver. In addition, spirometry cannot detect lung conditions for certain patient population. The proposed technology can be used without special breathing maneuver, and can differentiate more lung conditions than spirometer. Since the proposed device can be used while the patient is breathing normally, it will also cater to currently under-served patient segments, e.g. young children and senior citizens, for detection and diagnosis of pulmonary conditions. By targeting a portable form-factor, this technology will empower point-of-care pulmonary testing where it is currently infeasible.The proposed project will develop be the first handheld implementation of the well-studied principle of forced oscillation technique (FOT), where an acoustic pressure wave is sent via the mouth to a patient?s lungs and reflections are used to measure lung function. Thus, no special breathing maneuver is required from the patient. To achieve the handheld form-factor, the team proposes two complementary innovations. First, the team will develop a new coherent multi-speaker transmitter, which will reduce the size of the biggest component, i.e., speaker, in current implementations of FOT. To replace the huge speaker capable of generating sufficient magnitude pressure waves at very low frequencies, the team proposes to employ many small speakers with specially designed input signals such that they coherently add at the destination. Second, the team will develop coherent multi-sensor receiver to measure pressures waves from patient?s lungs which are often very small in amplitude, and interlaced with waves due to patient?s breathing. The team proposes to employ multiple sensors to measure flow and pressure of the reflected waves, such that the received signal to noise ratio can be increased by coherently processing the multiple received waveforms.