Modeling and control of the heart left ventricle supported with a rotary assist device

—A Rotary Left Ventricular Assist Device (RLVAD) is a mechanical pump implanted in patients with congestive heart failure to assist their left ventricle in pumping blood through the circulatory system. This blood pump is controlled by varying the rotor speed to adjust the amount of blood flow pumped into the circulatory system. If the patient is in a health care facility, the pump speed can be adjusted manually by a trained clinician to meet the patient’s blood needs depending on his or her activity level. However, an important challenge facing the increased use of the RLVAD is the desire to allow the patient to return home. The development of an appropriate feedback controller that is capable of automatically adjusting the pump speed is therefore a crucial step in meeting this challenge. In order to be able to develop such a controller an appropriate dynamic mathematical model of the combined cardiovascular system and RLVAD must first be developed. In this paper, we review progres...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: CDC
• Authors: Marwan A. Simaan
• Keywords: CDC 2008, Circulatory System, Control Systems, Feedback Controller, Pump Speed