COVID-19 Ventilators: Schematic representation

This dataset presents a schematic representation of some of the currently acknowledged solutions from the open-source projects of ventilators, made to challenge the COVID-19 pandemic. The framework is composed by two graphical tools: the Problem-Solution-Network (PSN) and the chart of structural solutions. Red boxes in the PSN represents the rows of the chart. More specifically, it has been hypothesized a framework capable to abstractly model existing solutions, in order to represent them without focusing on mere structural details that can somehow induce bias in designers that will consult them. Indeed, complete information about available open-source ventilators can be found, in terms of electrical scheme, detailed CAD models, videos and photos. However, many of them share the same working principles and differ only in terms of manufacturing-related choices and/or forms. Differently, other solutions implement completely different principles, but are sometimes implemented at a very rough level. It is acknowledged in literature that the way in which a prototype is presented (otherwise said “Fidelity” level) can actually influence the opinion of the audience (in this case, of the stakeholders involved in the development of new ventilators). Therefore, poorly implemented original ideas often risk to be discarded because “not convincing”, if compared to other (maybe old) ideas developed in higher detail. In order to avoid this problem, it has been chosen to model the compressing unit of the ventilators in two ways, i.e. abstractly with schemas, and graphically with generalized CAD models. For the abstract schematization, it has been chosen to apply the Problem-Solution-Network (PSN) approach. In particular, its last version has been taken as a reference, where different abstraction levels are considered to formulate both design problems and solutions. Then, a chart to collect the generalized CAD models of key mechanisms has been used, and directly linked to the PSN. The following paragraphs explain both the PSN and the chart. This particular set of graphical tools allows to represent ventilators by decomposing them into the main design problems and the related solutions used to implement them. Besides the generation of brand new solutions for each problem, the proposal allows to explore different combinations between already explored solutions (not to be confounded with a mere recombination of parts fom acknowledged ventilators). Please note that the file type "graphml" can be open and edited with the software yEd (available at www.yworks.com/products/yed).

本数据集概要呈现了呼吸机开源项目中部分当前公认的解决方案，这些方案旨在应对COVID-19大流行。该框架由两种图形工具构成：问题-解决方案网络（Problem-Solution-Network，PSN）和结构解决方案图表。PSN中的红色方框对应图表中的行。更具体地说，该框架旨在对现有解决方案进行抽象建模，从而在呈现这些方案时，避免聚焦于可能会对查阅者（即设计师）产生偏见的单纯结构细节。事实上，现有开源呼吸机的完整信息（包括电气原理图、详细CAD模型、视频及照片）均可获取。然而，其中许多方案共享相同的工作原理，仅在制造相关选择和/或形式上存在差异。相比之下，其他方案则采用完全不同的原理，但有时其实现程度较为粗糙。文献中公认，原型的呈现方式（又称“保真度”水平，Fidelity level）实际上会影响受众（此处指参与新呼吸机开发的利益相关者）的看法。因此，与其他（可能较旧但）细节更丰富的方案相比，实现粗糙的原创想法往往因“缺乏说服力”而面临被摒弃的风险。为避免这一问题，本研究选择以两种方式对呼吸机压缩单元进行建模：一是通过示意图进行抽象建模，二是通过通用CAD模型进行图形化建模。在抽象示意图方面，本研究采用了问题-解决方案网络（PSN）方法，具体而言，参考了其最新版本——该版本考虑了不同抽象层次，以构建设计问题与解决方案。随后，研究使用了一个图表来汇总关键机制的通用CAD模型，并将其与PSN直接关联。这套特定的图形工具能够通过将呼吸机分解为主要设计问题及对应的实现方案，来呈现呼吸机的结构。除了为每个问题生成全新解决方案外，该方案还允许探索已有解决方案之间的不同组合（请注意，这与公认呼吸机部件的单纯重组不可混淆）。请注意，graphml格式文件可通过yEd软件（可在www.yworks.com/products/yed获取）打开和编辑。