Respiratory simulator for robotic respiratory tract treatments

Abstract

Robotic healthcare is a growing and multi-faceted field where robots help perform surgery, remotely provide care to patients, aid in supplying various physical therapies and further medical research. Robotic simulators of human physiology provide a powerful platform to advance the development of novel treatments, prostheses and therapies. This study focuses on the design, building, testing and characterisation of a novel simulator of the human respiratory system. The comparison between healthy subjects breathing and coughing physiological values and the values achieved utilising our novel bioinspired respiratory simulator shows that the latter is able to reproduce peak flow rates and volumes.