Patch Fluid Delivery With Reusable Electronics and Fail-Safe Dosing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing patch-sized fluid delivery systems face challenges in reducing size, weight, and cost while ensuring reliable and precise delivery of therapeutic fluids, often requiring complex designs with multiple components and user interfaces that increase complexity and malfunction rates.
Innovation Solution
A patch-sized fluid delivery system is designed with a reusable and disposable portion, where the reusable portion contains electronic components like a controller, pump, and sensors, and the disposable portion includes the fluid path and reservoir, utilizing shape-memory actuators and flexible membrane material to manage fluid delivery, with features like fail-safe operation and redundant systems to prevent unsafe flow rates and ensure precise volume measurement.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the device uses multiple components and user interfaces to ensure reliable and precise fluid delivery, then the delivery reliability is improved, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The device is divided into a reusable portion containing electronic components (controller, pump, sensors) and a disposable portion containing the fluid path and reservoir. This segmentation allows the complex electronic systems to be reused while the disposable portion is replaced, maintaining reliability without permanently increasing overall device complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The disposable portion including the fluid path and reservoir is designed as a single-use component that is discarded after use. This eliminates the need to make the entire device disposable while ensuring that components that come into contact with fluid are replaced, maintaining reliability without the complexity of making all components reusable.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If the device is designed with fail-safe mechanisms and redundant systems to prevent unsafe flow rates, then the safety is improved, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The device incorporates fail-safe mechanisms and redundant systems designed in advance to prevent unsafe flow rates before they can occur. These preventive measures are built into the system architecture to ensure patient safety without requiring complex real-time interventions.
3Device complexity
If the device minimizes user interface components to reduce complexity, then the device complexity is reduced, but the ease of operation may be worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The complex user interface and control functions are extracted from the patch-sized device and placed in an external handheld controller. This allows the wearable patch to remain simple and low-complexity while the operation ease is maintained through the separate controller that handles all user interactions.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The system effectively reduces size and weight while maintaining reliable and precise fluid delivery, ensuring safe operation with fail-safe mechanisms and minimizing user interface components, thus enhancing patient safety and device reliability.
Implementation Method 1
utilizing shape-memory actuators and flexible membrane material to manage fluid delivery
Implementation Method 2
flexible membrane material to manage fluid delivery
Data Source
AI summary
A patch-sized fluid delivery device may include a reusable portion and a disposable portion. The disposable portion may include components that come into contact with the fluid, while the reusable portion may include only components that do not come into contact with the fluid. Redundant systems, such as redundant controllers, power sources, motor actuators, and alarms, may be provided. Alternatively or additionally, certain components can be multi-functional, such a microphones and loudspeakers that may be used for both acoustic volume sensing and for other functions and a coil that may be used as both an inductive coupler for a battery recharger and an antenna for a wireless transceiver. Various types of network interfaces may be provided in order to allow for remote control and monitoring of the device.