Control of an artificial human pancreas using the SDRE method

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus is a condition where the human body can no longer produce the insulin needed to sufficiently regulate the amount of blood glucose and use it for energy and metabolism. An automatic control system would be able to reduce long term adverse health affects resulting from elevated blood glucose levels. We deal with blood glucose regulation around a safe equilibrium value by the injection of insulin. This paper examines the use of nonlinear regulation for controlling the amount of insulin delivered to a diabetic person based on measuring their blood glucose level. The nonlinear method using the state dependent Riccati equation (SDRE) developed by Cloutier-D'Souza-Mracek (1996), is applied and examined under numerical simulations. This paper examines only a theoretical study of SDRE as a control methodology, and does not imply that the modelling of the human body is correct nor the resulting controller safe.