EPSAC Predictive Control Applied to Muscle Relaxant Administration

An Extended Prediction Self-Adaptive Control (EPSAC) strategy is applied to the rocuronium administration, a neuromuscular blocking drug used in anaesthesia to facilitate endotracheal intubation and to provide skeletal muscle relaxation during surgery. A safe anaesthesia should provide comfort to the patient and best possible working conditions for the surgeon. The muscle relaxant plays an important role and an adequate muscle relaxation, which allows efficient and safe surgery, can be provided using automated control. Moreover, closed-loop control may reduce anesthetist workload and achieve better regulation of muscle relaxation than manual administration, calculating the dose required for each patient and avoiding in this way overdosing. Predictive control requires prior knowledge of system dynamics, therefore a mathematical model is required. A three-compartment model for rocuronium is presented. Several parameter sets are used to simulate different patients and control performance is discussed.