Estimation of pressure head and flow rate in a continuous-flow artificial heart-in vivo evaluation

Instead of direct measurement of pressure head and flow rate of a centrifugal blood pump, the authors previously proposed a method of estimating these measurements. In this study, to ascertain the adequacy of the proposed method, an acute animal experiment was carried out using an adult goat equipped with an artificial heart consisting of two centrifugal pumps. The results indicated that the ARX model identified even in a mock circulation could estimate flow rate in the recipient accurately enough, although estimation accuracy of pressure head was not high.