Respiratory Emergency Device (RED) Ventilator

For patients suffering the worst symptoms of COVID-19, the only hope for survival may be a medical ventilator.  Unfortunately, the current crisis has shown us that the global supply of ventilators, especially in developing countries, is woefully inadequate.  By one analysis, the world ventilator demand is 10x higher than what is currently available .   In developing regions of the world, the situation is especially dire.  South Sudan has just 4 ventilators in total, for a population of 12 million people.  India, home to 1.3 billion people, has around 48 thousand ventilators - or around 1 ventilator per 27,000 people.  To put this another way:  in a pandemic scenario where 0.1% of the Indian population needed ventilation, India still needs 27 times the number of ventilators that it currently has.

Around the world, ventilator companies, universities, DIY engineering teams, and solo inventors have risen to the challenge to design and deploy new ventilator designs to increase access to this critical piece of equipment.  Large ventilator companies such as Draeger, Medtronic, Hamilton, and others have increased production to thousands of machines per month.  However, a typical ventilator from these companies costs between $15,000 to $50,000 USD.  Hospitals in places like South America, Africa, India and other developing regions simply cannot afford these kind of machines.

Our group is developing a low-cost emergency ventilator called the "Respiratory Emergency Device," or RED.  Why should you support our project over any of other ventilator projects out there?   One simple reason:  our team is the only non-profit design team founded and led by engineers with ventilator design experience.

Project RED was founded in mid-March 2020 by two veteran  engineers who previously spent years developing a commercial ventilator.  The founders have 15-20 years experience in product development, spanning medical devices, aerospace equipment, consumer goods, scientific test equipment and many other areas of industry.    We've recruited over 15 additional volunteers across the US and Canada to help us.  Project RED is incorporated as a California non-profit, and our sole mission is to develop a low-cost, reliable, easy to manufacture and effective emergency ventilator for use in worldwide emergency scenarios.

Below you can see one of the early prototypes of our ventilator.
We are designing this ventilator to meet the following goals:

- Low cost (< $3000 USD  -  5x less costly than a commercial ventilator)
- Low parts count
- Easy to source components
- Easy to assemble
- Reliable
- Intuitive and easy to learn
- Clinically effective for treating the majority of COVID-19 cases

There are many motivated and well-intentioned teams out there trying to develop ventilators, but in our opinion,  many of the designs have serious limitations, and some of them are outright dangerous.  Many of the recent designs are based on squeezing of a bag-valve-mask.  We don't believe this approach provides the precise control of pressure, flow and volume required to safely ventilate patients who are suffering from respiratory distress.  Many designs are missing the following critical features:

  -  Accurate control of pressure and flow
  -  Real-time monitoring and feedback for the caregiver
  -  Accurately controlled oxygen fraction
  -  Spontaneous Breath triggering
  -  Control of infectious contamination
  -  Proper over-pressure and anti-suffocation failsafes
  -  Electronic PEEP control
  -  Alarms
  -  Safety and redundancy features

We started Project RED because we actually have previous experience designing ventilators, and we know what the important features, design considerations and pitfalls are. 

Our plan is to develop an emergency ventilator design which can be licensed to other agencies (governments or non-profits) for manufacturing.  Unlike other groups, we are not planning to open-source the design.  Why?  A ventilator is a complex piece of equipment with responsibility for life or death.  We do not think it is safe to give everyone the ability to modify and tweak the design of a life-saving piece of equipment!  As an analogy, imagine handing out the software that controls the airbag or anti-lock braking system in your car, and giving anyone the freedom to modify it as they wish.  Does that seem wise?  We feel the same way about ventilators!   We believe ventilators should be designed by people with the tools and knowledge to do so, and the designs should be kept under tight controls.  We are happy to license the design  to qualified parties who can make and deploy our ventilators - with no profit to us.  But we are not planning to open-source the design.

So far, we have spent around $18,000 of our own money to bootstrap this project, and after 8 weeks our first prototype system is breathing!   We are seeking to crowd-source $100K in funding,  which will be used to buy essential test equipment  (lung simulators, gas flow analyzer, air compressors, oxygen supplies, etc.) and to build our first 10 ventilator prototypes.  We will be happy to share our progress with supporters and appreciate any amount that you can donate to move our project forward! 

Please visit us on the web for more information about the team, goals, etc.  Project Red website 

Thank you for your consideration!  Together, we can help ensure that anyone who needs access to ventilation will have it, in countries rich and poor.