Patent ID: 8585412

Claim:
A non-transitory machine-readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by a processing unit of an electronic computing system, cause the processing unit to perform a method comprising: providing a plurality of respiratory muscle effort waveform specifications for use by a breathing effort generator of a test platform, each of the plurality of respiratory muscle effort waveform specifications having associated therewith one or more waveform parameters, the plurality of respiratory muscle effort waveform specifications including each of (i) a first waveform specification based upon an empirical model that approximates clinically-observed, patient-generated muscle pressures, (ii) a second waveform specification based on configurable etiology-driven templates and (iii) a third waveform specification based on configurable piecewise trajectory templates; wherein each configurable etiology-driven template comprises a generalized, case-specific template representing quantifiable patterns of breathing behavior associated with a respiratory disease; and wherein each configurable piecewise trajectory template comprises piecewise effort coordinates for configurable time differentials; configuring a waveform engine of the breathing effort generator in accordance with (i) a selected waveform specification of the plurality of respiratory muscle effort waveform specifications and (ii) values for each of the one or more waveform parameters of the selected waveform specification; and causing a desired breathing pattern to be simulated by a lung simulation system of the test platform based on ( 1 ) one or more model parameter values and (ii) a respiratory muscle effort waveform generated by the waveform engine.