Mercedes has made the design of a new breathing-aid device it helped develop freely available to help fight the coronavirus crisis.
The device helps patients with lung infections breathe more easily when an oxygen mask alone is insufficient.
The new ‘continuous positive airway pressure’ device was reverse-engineered from a previous model in less than 100 hours and received regulatory approval last week.
The designs released by Mercedes for public use include specifications of materials, tools and kit used in the rapid-prototyping process.
The UK government has ordered 10,000 of the devices which are being produced “at a rate of up to 1,000 a day”, Mercedes say, at their engine-design base in Brixworth, Northamptonshire.
