Multivariable discrete MPC with exponential cost function on the automation of the anesthesia process

Abstract

AbstractThe automation of the delivery of anesthesia infusion rate in a general medical procedure consists of calculating the adequate infusion to regulate a patient's hypnosis state. In this procedure, the patient model has been considered as a Single‐Input Single‐Output system. However, the anesthesiologist introduces other medications, such as analgesics. Therefore, this contribution considers a closed‐loop formulation with two drugs as input control variables: propofol as an anesthetic, and remifentanil as an analgesic. Then, through the mathematical model description, this paper introduces a multiple‐input and multiple‐output (MIMO) model predictive control (MPC) to regulate the deep of hypnosis (DOH) based on the co‐administration of propofol and remifentanil. Since the control variables must be positive during the procedure, the MPC is formulated as a constrained optimization problem. Quadratic programming solves the optimization problem by designing and developing an exponential cost function, which allows the rapid convergence of the MPC optimization algorithm. Finally, the proposed MPC formulation is tested on 12 patients in silico, simulating a 60‐min general surgery. The simulated results verify the performance of the proposed MPC.