Testing System for Respiratory Devices: Human Cough and Mucus Production Simulator (Googun)

Click here to download the Googun PDF

Click here to access the project team's poster session (June 12, 2020, 1pm-2pm PDT)

Project Background

The Googun is a corporate-sponsored project aimed at building a system for stress-testing medical devices in development, by providing a cheaper, safer
alternative to human test subjects. Our Googun offers pseudo-realistic mucus production and cough behavior, similar to that of an average person, making it ideal for testing respiratory devices.

Our client, Certus Critical Care Inc. (3Ci), is developing prototypes that have sensors located near the end of an endotracheal tube. They need to test how their sensors are affected by the secreted mucus from the patient at this location, as they do not yet have data on the short and long term effects of mucus on their sensors.

Our Solution

The solution is split into two parts: Mucus Injection and Cough Production. Both are controlled by a microcontroller (MCU) which receives system commands from the user interface.

User Interface

The client required an interface to control the MIM and MPM modules. Our solution involved a graphical interface that monitors the status of the modules and allows for the user to send instructions on operation of the modules.

Googun Control Graphical Interface

Conclusion

We successfully fabricated and characterized a Googun system. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were not able to fully vet the system with verification tests. Due to social distancing laws, we were not able to test the systems together. The pandemic also prevented us from obtaining a working ventilator or an endotracheal tube.