Development of an artificial womb for acoustical simulation of mother's abdomen

Abstract

Experimental testing and validation is necessary for any system under developmental stage. It is proposed that an artificial womb, which gives simulated testing conditions, is very appropriate for testing and calibration of foetal monitoring systems, in comparison with actual clinical testing on pregnant woman. In this work, an attempt has been made to develop an artificial womb that replicates acoustical state of a pregnant woman's abdomen. Various signals are applied to speakers placed underneath of water-filled rubber balloons, which simulate foetal heartbeat propagation through amniotic fluid of placenta. After thorough comparative experimentation, it is found that the presented system closely simulates acoustical conditions of mother's abdomen.