Multimodal Sensor Integrated Diagnostic Tool for Chronic Airway Management

Problem Statement:

Chronic upper airway obstruction in infants is often debilitating requiring immediate attention. The small airway geometry is susceptible to a few airway disorders such as congenital tracheal stenosis, tracheomalacia, tracheal agenesis and, atresia. Chronic inflammation, reduction in biomechanical property of the tissues, progressive narrowing and airway collapse occur due to a diversity of pathological anomalies whose origin remains unknown in most cases. Thus, it is a clinical entity that warrants timely diagnosis and treatment. Management and treatment strategy often rely on a clinician’s expertise and is based on suspicion index. Lack of a definitive approach to treat patients with chronic airway obstruction demands for diagnostic tools in a clinical setting that can facilitate better prognosis.

Concept:

The tool is a combination of an array of flow sensors and an actuator at the distal end designed to house a tactile sensor. The flow sensor array yields airflow patterns across various segments of the tracheobronchial tree based on the amount of heat flux on the thermal sensor. The flow patterns illustrate that the voltage sensed is proportional to the flow rate which directly corresponds to the degree of constriction. The work of tactile sensors is to delineate the healthy and malacic tissue based on the sensor diaphragm deflection. This way, factors such as site of obstruction, malacic segment and length of stenosis can be determined simultaneously without the need for catheter exchanges.

Technology/Science involved:

MEMS-based Sensors, Handheld Medical Diagnostic Tools, Central Airway Obstruction

Patent Application number:

WO2021260461

Publication:

An Intubation Catheter Integrated with Flow Sensors and Smart Actuators for Characterizing Airflow Patterns in Stenosed Trachea: An Objective Guide for CAO Management. B Alekya; V V S N Sitaramgupta; B S Arjun; ; Abishek Kevin; Rao Sanjay; Kim Yeongjin; Hardik Pandya

Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, IOP Publishing, Reference Number - JMM-105222.R2

Key Roles/ Responsibilities :

Designing, Prototype Development, Testing 

What I did:

• Designed & Rendered the entire system 

• Developed Engineering drawings based on ASME Y14.5  standards for manufacturing 

• Components orders and procurement 

• Complete system integration and subsystem level calibration 

• Worked on high precision slide scanning mechanism and developed hardware and software backlash compensation

Results :

Once the system starts, glass slide needs to be loaded on the automatic scanning platform, captures high-resolution images of the entire glass slide in under 3 mins using a raster scanning mechanism, after the completion of the raster scan the system stitches the images and creates a high resolution image of the entire slide.