Air-powered pneumatics are used in numerous walks of life ranging from train brakes to medical ventilators. However, detecting failures has been a difficult task because the addition of electronic sensors can be both costly and dangerous. However, researchers at UC Riverside have developed a new, inexpensive, air-powered logic device to address this issue.
This device is made in such a manner that it can easily detect crashes/failures in pneumatic devices without the need for electric sensors. It has been effectively used in medical devices, for example, to assist avoid strokes and blood clots, providing a more dependable and affordable alternative to electronic sensors.
This computer not only works on air but also issues warnings using air. Upon detecting any issue in the device it is monitoring it instantly whistles.
Leg sleeves known as intermittent pneumatic compression (IPC) devices are designed to compress a person’s legs by intermittently filling them with air. This increases blood flow and prevents clots, which can cause clogged blood vessels, strokes, or even death. These devices are usually powered and observed by electronic systems.
“IPC devices can save lives, but all the electronics in them make them expensive. So, we wanted to develop a pneumatic device that gets rid of some of the electronics, to make these devices cheaper and safer,” said William Grover, associate professor of bioengineering at UC Riverside and corresponding paper author.
Pneumatic systems are an effective way to transport compressed air, used in emergency brakes for freight trains, bicycle pumps, tire pressure gauges, respirators, and IPC devices. Grover along with his team thought it would only make sense to use the same technology to improve safety.
This kind of gadget uses parity bit calculations to deliver extra information, working similarly to electronic circuits. “Let’s say I want to send a message in ones and zeroes, like 1-0-1, three bits,” Grover said. “Decades ago, people realized they could send these three bits with one additional piece of information to make sure the recipient got the right message.”
21 tiny valves allow an air-powered computer to use air pressure differentials to precisely process binary data. The system is silent when it is working correctly, but any malfunctions cause a clear whistle to sound, indicating that maintenance is required. Grover and his students demonstrated how purposeful knife damage to an IPC gadget produced an instant whistle.
“This device is about the size of a box of matches. It replaces a handful of sensors as well as a computer,” Grover said. “So, we can reduce costs while still detecting problems in a device. And it could also be used in high humidity or high-temperature environments that aren’t ideal for electronics.”
Grover’s next objective is to develop a device that might potentially replace the dangerous operation of physically processing grain in tall silos, which is the cause of several fatalities annually, even though IPC device monitoring is just one application. These enormous, Midwesterner-style buildings frequently require human access to reposition grain.
“A remarkable number of deaths occur because the grain shifts and the person gets trapped. A robot could do this job instead of a person. However, these silos are explosive, and a single electric spark could blow a silo apart, so an electronic robot may not be the best choice,” Grover said. “I want to make an air-powered robot that could work in this explosive environment, not generate any sparks, and take humans out of danger.”
At least a century has passed since the invention of air-powered computing. Earlier examples of this concept’s potential were air-powered pianos that could produce music from punched rolls of paper. However, engineers lost interest in pneumatic circuits as modern computing emerged.
“Once a new technology becomes dominant, we lose awareness of other solutions to problems,” Grover said. “One thing I like about this research is that it can show the world that there are situations today when 100-plus-year-old ideas can still be useful.”
