Projects

An artificial sphincter prosthesis was designed on the basis of the micropump, that was developed in the Project GASS. This sphincter system was manufactured and tested in animal experiments. The compact system (Fig. 1) consists of a hollow body which is placed around the defective sphincter and a micropump that sets the hollow body under pressure depending on the desired degree of continence. The housing contains the micropump, pressure sensors as well as a valve and the entire electronic control, including communication and power supply. The main project achievements were the reduction of the drive voltage of the micropump to 40V peak to peak, and its power consumption from 212 mW to 63 mW, and the considerable miniaturization of the electronics. In addition, a normally closed microvalve was developed.