Learning Respiratory System Function in BME Studies by Means of a Virtual Laboratory: RespiLab

One of the career areas included in the field of Biomedical Engineering (BME) is the application of engineering system analysis: physiologic modeling, simulation, and control. This paper describes a virtual laboratory and related practical sessions designed for the analysis and the study of the human respiratory system. The laboratory is based on the compilation of several models described in the literature. Presented application has been built using MATLAB/Simulink and Easy Java Simulations (EJS), combining good computation capabilities that are completely interactive. The virtual laboratory is designed in order to understand the operation of the respiratory system under normal conditions and pathological situations, and to predict respiratory variables at different levels of ventilator stimuli and conditions. The presented virtual laboratory has been used and evaluated by students of the Master of Science degree on BME. Experience has shown that this virtual laboratory is a very useful tool for learning the complex response of the human respiratory system.