The Air1 Ventilator

CAE Juno emergency scenario

by Nicolas Sacchetti

When COVID-19 struck, both domestic and international travel were interrupted. The impact on aviation companies was major. Canadian Aviation Electronics (CAE) is a high-tech company at the cutting edge of digital immersion. The key global player in training pilots, defense forces and doctors had to reinvent itself. Marc St-Hilaire is the Vice-President of Technology and Innovation. He tells the story of the life-saving CAE Air1 ventilator:

"I come from a second generation of steel workers. My grandfather worked in a shop with his eight sons. They made railroad components, welded steel and machined it. They worked at the Angus Railway shop. In the east end of Montréal. It was the Second World War. I was a child. I listened to my uncles tell stories about the war. One day, soldiers came to the shop and ordered my uncles to stop what they were doing. Starting tomorrow, they would have to make tank components. The workers did not realize that they had the skills and abilities to do this. That their skills and abilities could be used for other purposes. It's exactly the same story here." - Marc St-Hilaire

CAE has the ability to build extremely complicated electromechanical machines, and to simulate human cases in life and death situations. Marc St-Hilaire: "When we realized we could pivot and manufacture ventilators, in times of crisis, this struck us: contributing to a resilience factor against COVID-19."

Using Key Assets for Other Purposes

A certain single-board computer was repurposed as part of the ventilator. The CAE Air1 Ventilator is designed and manufactured in Montreal and it involved over 500 CAE employees from 45 departments. It can deliver pressure control, volume control and pressure support ventilation using room air or pressured oxygen. It uses an intuitive, simple touchscreen interface and is bundled with on-demand ventilator training, adaptive e-learning modules related to COVID-19 patient management, and 24/7 customer support. The skill set required to build a flight simulator was reused to develop the device's human/machine interface.

For Marc St-Hilaire, the experience was rewarding: "What we learned from this experience showed us how to innovate on advanced technology projects. We developed the CAE Air1 Ventilator, but we are also involved in other medical devices at this time. So, that's part of the COVID-19 story."

Marc St-Hilaire was part of a videoconference panel consisting of Kathy Malas (CHUM), Elisabeth Toller (Health Canada), and moderated by Annie Martin (CSA) on business regulation. The event was presented at the first P4IE Conference on Policies, Practices and Processes related to the Performance Ecosystem. Presented by 4POINT0.

This content has been updated on 2023-05-26 at 0 h 09 min.