Siemens is involved in the US Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) BREATHE programme. The initiative focuses on creating systems to monitor indoor air quality and activate responses to airborne health hazards.
The BREATHE programme may last up to five years and aims to improve indoor air quality and cut respiratory disease rates by at least 25%. It emphasises creating integrated systems that continuously monitor indoor air quality and can respond by adding ventilation or disinfection as needed.
Siemens is contributing to two of BREATHE’s three technical areas: respiratory risk assessment software and healthy building controls and system integration. The third area covers indoor air biosensors.
Siemens links digital twins with building controls
The building controls element is intended to connect risk assessment with building management systems. This could allow responses such as ventilation, filtration and disinfection to be automated based on information from the programme’s sensing and assessment technologies.
Digital twin modelling forms another part of Siemens’ contribution. The company says its technology can model airflow, temperature and energy consumption, allowing proposed mitigation measures to be tested in a virtual environment before deployment.
The work brings the modelling and simulation of building conditions together with building automation and biosensor technology supplied by project partners. Siemens says its systems will integrate with risk assessment models to support automated building responses to real-time biosensor data.
Two BREATHE projects focus on healthcare settings
Siemens is participating in two BREATHE projects, one led by Mayo Clinic and the other by SafeTraces.
The Mayo Clinic-led Hospital Air Quality (HAIQU) project focuses on emergency departments. It will use biosensors, artificial intelligence and smart air filtration systems to monitor and improve indoor air quality. Mayo Clinic says the project will begin by developing a biosensor that can monitor emergency department air for aerosols, including viruses, bacteria, mould and allergens, before moving to real-world testing.
The second project, led by SafeTraces, is developing a microarray qPCR biosensor and software for real-time respiratory risk assessment. The system is intended to trigger a different operating mode in buildings when risk levels are high and will be deployed in Defense Health Agency medical centres.
Siemens’ role across the two projects relates to the risk assessment and building-control elements of BREATHE. Its digital twin technology can also model building conditions and test mitigation measures before deployment.
Field trials planned across US cities
The technologies are due to be validated through field trials across multiple US cities and in critical infrastructure settings. The trials will test their performance under different conditions.
The wider BREATHE programme aims to bring together indoor air biosensors, respiratory risk assessment software, and building controls. ARPA-H says the programme builds on existing smart-building technologies used for comfort and energy efficiency, applying similar approaches to indoor pathogens and allergens.
For Siemens, the projects bring digital twin modelling and building automation into systems designed to detect indoor air threats and respond through building controls. The work is being carried out with the Mayo Clinic and SafeTraces-led teams as part of the wider BREATHE programme.
