  Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has created an unprecedented need for
breathing assistance devices. Since the demand for commercial, full-featured
ventilators is far higher than the supply capacity, many rapid-response
ventilators are being developed for invasive mechanical ventilation of
patients. Most of these emergency ventilators utilize mechanical squeezing of
bag-valve-masks or Ambu-bags. These "bag squeezer" designs are bulky and heavy,
depends on many moving parts, and difficulty to assemble and use. Also,
invasive ventilation requires intensive care unit support, which may be
unavailable to a vast majority of patients, especially in developing countries.
In this work, we present a low-cost ($<$\$200), portable (fits in an 8"x8"x4"
box), non-invasive ventilator (NIV), designed to provide relief to early-stage
COVID-19 patients in low-resource settings. We used a high-pressure blower fan
for providing noninvasive positive-pressure ventilation. Our design supports
continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) and bilevel positive airway pressure
(BiPAP) modes. A common concern of using CPAP or BiPAP for treating COVID-19
patients is the aerosolization of the severe acute respiratory syndrome
coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). We used a helmet-based solution that contains the
spread of the virus. Our end-to-end solution is compact, low-cost ($<$\$400
including the helmet, viral filters, and a valve), and easy-to-use. Our NIV
provides 0-20 cmH$_{2}$O pressure with flow rates of 60-180 Lmin$^{-1}$. We
hope that our report will encourage implementations and further studies on
helmet-based NIV for treating COVID-19 patients in low-resource settings.
