IISc team successfully completes prototyping of a ventilator under Project Praana
On May 29, 2020, IISc’s Project PRAANA team successfully completed the prototyping of an indigenously developed ICU-grade ventilator. Built using a custom designed pneumatic system controlled by a microprocessor, it uses proprietary algorithms and techniques to blend air and oxygen in the desired ratio. It also has fine-grained control of patient-side respiratory parameters such as respiration rate, inspiration to expiration ratio, FiO2, and PEEP. It supports both invasive and non-invasive ventilation.
The ventilator uses only components made in India or easily available in the domestic supply chains. The team took about 35 days to go from the drawing board to a proof-of-concept system, and then a working prototype in another two weeks.
Project PRAANA was started by IISc faculty members Gaurab Banerjee, Duvvuri Subrahmanyam, TV Prabhakar and Pratikash Panda, Bangalore-based engineer Manas Pradhan, and retired IISc professor HS Jamadagni. Many volunteers helped including physicians Dr. Supreet Khare, Dr. Sriram Sampath, and Dr. Krishna Prasad. “We are now actively exploring options to collaborate with an industry partner to further co-develop the prototype into a field-ready product,” says Subrahmanyam.
The project received internal support from IISc, external funding from the office of the Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India,and a CSR contribution from the State Bank of India Foundation. Narayana Health, Bengaluru, provided medical testing equipment for verification of the ventilator performance.
