Flow controlled artificial ventilation of a COPD patient

The paper discusses the application of a direct adaptive controller to a flow controlled artificial ventilation problem. The case study focuses on patients diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), which require artificial/mechanical ventilation. The controller ensures peak pressures below critical values, by manipulating the flow delivered by the ventilator. The simulation study is performed on a fractional-order model of the respiratory impedance identified from lung function data. The data has been obtained from clinical tests on COPD patients. Additional simulation studies show the robustness of the controller in presence of varying model parameters from the respiratory impedance of the patient. Some possibilities to implement the control strategy as an online adaptive algorithm are also explored. The results show that the design of the control is suitable for this kind of application and provides useful insight on realistic scenarios.