Venipuncture is the process of gaining access to veins for the purpose of blood sampling or therapy.

It is often difficult to locate and accurately insert the needle, even for train professionals leading to lengthy service times and increased discomfort for the patient.

Existing solutions for locating veins cost thousands of dollars and don't assist with the injection step. They also have difficulty with small veins, those with decreased elasticity, bruising, obesity and tattooed patients.

We are developing an autonomous solution to locate veins and insert needles for venipucture called

PhleBot.

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Opening an intravenous line for some patients can be very challenging due to difficulty in visualizing the vein. Market solutions to this problem include infrared finders and NIR based sensors which reach prices upwards of $750.

This project aims to create a low budget medical device that would be capable of opening an intravenous line to simplify the venipuncture process. The value of this project aims to provide a cheap alternative to the many current visualization tools out in the market currently, which in addition has the ability to successfully perform venipuncture and open an I.V. safely without a trained healthcare professional. 

The final design aims to be able to autonomously determine the vein and perform the injection without any external help.