Design of an open source ultra low cost insulin pump

Abstract

In this report we present a design for an open source low cost insulin pump. The pump has been designed to provide an alternative to commercially available pumps costing upwards of US$6500, making them inaccessible to many. The hardware described in this article can be produced for a materials cost of US$89.85. Compared to other devices on the market, the design presented has the obvious advantage of being low cost, but is also highly customisable as it is run using open source software. The device is housed in a case of size 85 mm x 55 mm x 25 mm making it small enough to fit in a pocket, and equivalent to other devices on the market. The device is designed to work with insulin cartridges currently available on the market. Power is provided through the use of AAA batteries, and the pump is able to be recharged through a USB mini port. The accuracy of the pump has been tested and compared to data obtained from an in-warranty commercial insulin pump model using an identical testing methodology, with the ultra-low-cost pump performing similarly to the commercial model. The system can be readily extended to be controlled from external bluetooth or wired mobile devices using their built in security, offloading computation from the device and onto a phone.

Keywords

• insulin pump
• Bioengineering
• Open source
• Medical device
• Electrical engineering
• Mechanical engineering