Project Praana

Project Praana, which is a volunteer project by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), made plans for a basic ventilator that could be put together with parts and materials made in India. This was done because there weren’t enough medical ventilators available during the COVID-19 pandemic.

About Project Praana:

Purpose:

To help meet the urgent need for ventilators as COVID-19 spread, the team worked to create a ventilator that would work just as well as the ones used in Intensive Care Units.

Developer:

A team of engineers and researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have worked on finding solutions to make farming waste less urgent.

Key Features:

Prototype ventilator: The project led to a working prototype of a ventilator that is meant to help people in intensive care who need extra help to breathe.

Open-source design: The ventilator design was made freely available to anyone to help get more people involved and work together.

Focus on Indian-made components: The ventilator was made to use parts that could be bought or made easily in India or got from the local market.

Fine-grained control: The ventilator lets doctors adjust exactly how the patient is getting oxygen in small and detailed ways.

Supports both helping patients with breaths through a tube and letting them breathe on their own without a tube. The ventilator is made so it can help with both regular breathing assistance and helping with breathing when the lungs aren’t working well.

Timeline:

The team made a working version of the ventilator in just 35 days.

Team:

The project was run by faculty from IISc and had some volunteers, like doctors, helping out.

Funding and support:

Project PRAANA was helped along by staff at IISc, got some money from the Principal Scientific Adviser in the government, and also got a donation from the State Bank of India Foundation.