I was president of the IET for 2016-17, and have been asked by government to gather practical and innovative ideas from our Engineering communities. So, please enter any ideas you might have in this thread that might help address and mitigate the Covid-19 crisis. Ideas might include digital tracking / monitoring through therapy equipment and beyond. Even ideas outside your usual expertise domain will be welcome. Now’s the time for Engineering to show we can change the world!
Within the last week I saw a news item where the person being interviewed said that ways had to be found to source the electronics for ventilators. I presume he was referring to control systems. The thought that crossed my mind was that there must be a large stock of retired or superseded mobile phones in drawers around the country. After all people are forever being encouraged to upgrade. Working on the belief that a smart phone is really a computer with a fairly powerful processor. If a call is put out for retired mobile phones to be donated to be used a control systems for ventilators, would this solve the problem? I have not thought about whether the android or IOS operating systems should be retained and the control system for the ventilator should be a single app on the smart phone.
Within the last week I saw a news item where the person being interviewed said that ways had to be found to source the electronics for ventilators. I presume he was referring to control systems. The thought that crossed my mind was that there must be a large stock of retired or superseded mobile phones in drawers around the country. After all people are forever being encouraged to upgrade. Working on the belief that a smart phone is really a computer with a fairly powerful processor. If a call is put out for retired mobile phones to be donated to be used a control systems for ventilators, would this solve the problem? I have not thought about whether the android or IOS operating systems should be retained and the control system for the ventilator should be a single app on the smart phone.
