EasyVoid: A Handheld Coandă Effect Uroflowmeter for Accurate and Portable Measurement of Urinary Flow Dynamics
Chang, Ray, Yu-Chen Chen, Hao-Wei Chen, Ruei-Hong Zeng, and Manu Prakash. "EasyVoid: A Handheld Coandă Effect Uroflowmeter for Accurate and Portable Measurement of Urinary Flow Dynamics." Authorea Preprints (2025).
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Diagnosis of lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) often relies on subjective questionnaires, conventional uroflowmetry or invasive urodynamic study, each with inherent limitations. This work presents EasyVoid, a novel handheld device that employs the Coandă effect to enable non-invasive and quantitative measurement of urinary flow. EasyVoid uses a passive fluidic mechanism in which the urinary stream adheres to a curved surface and transfers angular momentum to a helical rotor, allowing direct estimation of flow rate and volume without pressure sensors or weighing systems. EasyVoid simultaneously records key voiding parameters, including flow rate, flow pattern, voiding time, and voided volume, with high temporal precision. In controlled bench-top trials using simulated urine events, measurements obtained from EasyVoid showed strong agreement with standard uroflowmetry across multiple flow patterns. These results demonstrate that EasyVoid provides an accurate and portable platform for quantitative assessment of urinary flow dynamics, offering a promising solution for remote urinary health monitoring.
