Respiratory therapy apparatus
AssigneeResMed Pty Ltd
InventorsBarton John Kenyon, Timothy Nicholas Shadie, Cem Tarakci
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A blower comprises a housing, an inlet to receive air, an outlet to deliver a flow of air and a deformable member configured to pump a chamber. The deformable member may be configurable to a first configuration and a second configuration, for example by electrical energy that may be applied as current or voltage. The blower may comprise a plurality of chambers, wherein each chamber may be compressed out of phase with each other, for example such that the flow rate of the generated air flow may not fluctuate as much. In other forms, the blower may comprise a plurality of chambers that vary in size.
Claims26
A blower for producing a flow of air at a positive pressure, the blower comprising:
- a housing;
- one or more air inlets;
- a plurality of chambers in the housing and arranged in parallel, each chamber configured to receive air from one or more of the one or more air inlets;
- a set of deformable members, each deformable member being convertible to a first configuration and a second configuration by electrical energy;
- and
- one or more air outlets, each chamber configured to deliver air from the blower through one or more of the one or more air outlets;
- wherein each of the plurality of chambers is configured to produce the flow of air at a positive pressure through the one or more air outlets by conversion of the set of deformable members between the first configuration and the second configuration;
- a controller in a form of a processor programmed to control application of electric energy to operate at least a first deformable member and a second deformable member of the set of deformable members out of phase with each other;
- wherein the first deformable member divides the housing into a first chamber and a second chamber of the plurality of chambers, the first chamber includes a first air inlet of the one or more air inlets and a first air outlet of the one or more air outlets;
- and
- wherein the first chamber is isolated from the second chamber across the first deformable member such that the first air inlet and the first air outlet are disposed on a same side of the first deformable member, and airflow through the first chamber between the first air inlet and the first air outlet bypasses the second chamber.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.