Development of an intelligent adapter for metered dose inhalers

To better coordinate the interaction of inhalation and aerosol release, an intelligent adapter (IA) was developed for metered dose inhalers (MDIs). The adapter included three main units: a signal acquisition device, a micro-control-unit (MCU), and an actuation mechanism. To fully study the effectiveness of the intelligent adapter, an inhalation simulation experiment was done, and two bands of MDI were used for the experiment. The results indicated that, when inhalation, the intelligent adapter can press down the MDI automatically; moreover, this intelligent adapter could achieve an aerosol-release time Tr of 0.4 s for MDI A and 0.60 s for MDI B, which compares very well with the existing pure mechanical systems at 0.8 s and 1.0 s.