A generalized method for controlling end-tidal respiratory gases during nonsteady physiological conditions.

While forcing of end-tidal gases by regulating inspired gas concentrations is a common technique for studying cardiorespiratory physiology, independently controlling end-tidal gases is technically challenging. Feedforward control methods are challenging because end-tidal values vary as a dynamic function of both inspired gases and other nonregulated physiological parameters. Conventional feedback control is limited by delays within the lungs and body tissues and within the end-tidal forcing system itself. Consequently, modern end-tidal forcing studies have generally restricted their analysis to simple time courses of end-tidal gases and to resting steady-state conditions. To overcome these limitations, we have designed and validated a more generalized end-tidal forcing system that removes the need for manual tuning and rule-of-thumb based control heuristics, while allowing for accurate control of gases along spontaneous and complicated time courses and under nonsteady physiological conditions. On average during resting, steady walking, and walking with time varying speed, our system achieved step changes in PetCO2 within 3.0 ± 0.9 (mean ± SD) breaths and PetO2 within 4.4 ± 0.9 breaths, while also maintaining small steady-state errors of 0.1 ± 0.2 mmHg for PetCO2 and 0.3 ± 0.8 mmHg for PetO2 The system also accurately tracked more complicated changes in end-tidal values through a bandwidth of 1/10 the respiratory (sampling) frequency, a practical limit of feedback control systems. The primary mechanism enabling this controller performance is a generic mathematical model of the cardiopulmonary system that captures the breath-by-breath relationship between inspired and end-tidal gas concentrations, with secondary contributions from reduced delays in controlled air delivery.