eero pehkonen - PDP course

PDP- course

PDP a.k.a Product development project was a multidisciplinary development course. During the course our team from three countries built a full scale prototype of electrically stabilized stretcher. All the teams in the course had a company or association sponsoring them. Our sponsor for the project was Murata. Murata wanted us to develop a novel product concept that utilized their MEMS motion sensor.

Our stretcher prototype at PDP- final Gala

Research

After we decided to develop the new kind of stretcher we started our vast backround research. The research included patient- and medical professional interviews in 4 different countries Finland, Portugal, Poland and India. This gave us great overview of different stretcher types and ambulance equipments in general.

Patient and medical professional interviews showed that vibration, shakes and bumps can be critical issue during patient transportation. The results made us more confident that we are tackling serious issue. For the most critically injured patients shaky transportation can be life-threatening.

We also got a chance to place one of Murata's accelerometer to the stretcher in Helsinki for a week for collecting vibration data.

Paramedic interview Helsinki, FInland

Paramedic interview Porto, Portugal

Porto

Research material India

Development

Our plan was to build full scale prototype of electrically stabilized stretcher. We used HiWin linear motors for lifting the patient up and down. We wanted to place the motors horizontally inside the bottom frame. This way they wouldn't take too much space but we needed some way to direct the motors horizontal movement vertically. For this problem we wanted to use a special Push chains. There are steel push chains available but due to resources and long delivery time we 3D printed them ourself. With few iterations we managed to make the 3D printed push chains strong enough for our prototype.( see pictures below ).