Developed at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, US, the ventilator is called Ventilator Intervention Technology Accessible Locally (VITAL).
The launch of the new ventilator is expected to free up the country’s limited supply of traditional ventilators so they may be used on patients, showing the most severe symptoms of Covid-19.
The Office of Technology Transfer and Corporate Partnerships at Caltech, which manages JPL, is offering a free license for VITAL. It is also in discussions with commercial medical industry to find manufacturers for the device.
