Archive · 8 Aug 2026
Engineer Moves from ICU Ventilators to Self-Driving Safety
During the COVID-19 pandemic in India, hospitals ran out of oxygen and many very sick people needed machines called ventilators to help them breathe.
A young engineer named Varun Vupparige helped build a special ventilator called the V310 in Pune.
Ventilators are tricky machines because they must give exactly the right amount of air and oxygen to patients who are fighting to breathe.
His team made more than 2,500 of these ventilators that were used all across India.
The work was so important that it got a special award and was written about in a book called The Ventilator Project.
Later, Varun went to a university in California to learn more about engineering.
There, he studied how self-driving cars can safely plan their paths.
Today he works at the Goodyear tire company, helping cars understand how much grip their tires have on the road.
He believes that building a ventilator and building a safe self-driving car are really the same job: making sure machines keep people safe.
Pune-based engineer Varun Vijaykumar Vupparige worked on design, development, testing, and validation of Noccarc's V310 ICU ventilator during India's second COVID-19 wave.
The V310 effort supported production and installation of more than 2,500 ICU ventilators across India, generating more than $5 million in revenue.
The pandemic-era work received recognition in the Limca Book of Records and was chronicled in the book The Ventilator Project.
Vupparige earned a mechanical engineering master's degree from the University of California, San Diego, researching trajectory optimisation and path tracking for self-driving systems.
He now works at The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, developing state-estimation algorithms for tyre-road grip in advanced driver-assistance and autonomous systems.
He also holds a granted patent for a strut-integrated wheel-hub drive assembly for electric vehicles.
- Who
- Varun Vijaykumar Vupparige, a safety-critical systems engineer who worked at Noccarc and now works at The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.
- What
- He helped design, develop, test, and validate the V310 ICU ventilator during India's COVID-19 crisis and now develops state-estimation algorithms for tyre-road grip in driver-assistance and autonomous systems.
- When
- The ventilator work took place in spring 2021 during India's second COVID-19 wave; he has since completed a master's degree and now works at Goodyear.
- Where
- Pune, India (Noccarc); University of California, San Diego; The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.
- Why
- To ensure machines making real-time, life-critical decisions such as ventilators and self-driving vehicles operate accurately with zero margin of error.
- Device
- Noccarc V310 ICU ventilator
- Ventilator work location
- Noccarc, Pune, India
- Ventilators installed
- More than 2,500 ICU ventilators across India
- Revenue generated
- More than $5 million
- Recognition
- Limca Book of Records; chronicled in The Ventilator Project
- Compliance standards
- ISO 13485, IEC 60601, IEC 62304
- Master's degree
- Mechanical Engineering, University of California, San Diego
- Current employer
- The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company