In the Advanced Robotics and Controls Lab (ARC Lab) at UCSD, the team focuses on developing robotic devices for a variety of applications.  This project focuses on assisting the guided biopsy robot and the robotic catheter by providing an anatomical moving lung phantom for testing purposes. 

Challenges posed by the COVID19 pandemic have forced our capstone project team to develop subsystems separately at our respective locations and integrate the system towards the end. Despite these unfortunate circumstances we have made a fully functional, PID-controlled lungs ventilator that works for both positive and negative pressure ventilation. My responsibility in the project was the system design, sensing, electronic circuit design, UI, and system integration. 

Our design, as shown in the figure above, consists of a cubic prism with ports at the trachea and at the top of the box. The two ports can be used interchangeably for both positive and negative pressure applications, which allow for simulating breathing motion for both the biopsy and catheter robot use. A high-pressure relief valve at the trachea entrance in positive pressure tubing and a low-pressure relief valve on top of the box is placed to prevent dangerous pressure levels within the phantom or the container. Depending on the setup, an air compressor would provide positive pressure air flow to the phantom or a vacuum pump would provide negative pressure airflow from the chamber. A differential pressure sensor between the lung and the chamber is used to determine the pressure within the lungs. An Arduino microcontroller is be programmed to control the motorized valves to match the breathing patterns of human lungs based on pressure data. 

Moving Anatomical Phantom Website MAE156B