An optimal controller for an electric ventricular-assist device: Theory, implementation, and testing

The authors address the development and testing of an optimal position feedback controller for the Penn State electric ventricular-assist device (EVAD). The control law is designed to minimize the expected value of the EVAD's power consumption for a targeted patient population. The closed-loop control law is implemented on an Intel 8096 microprocessor, and in vitro test runs show that this controller improves the EVAD's efficiency by 15-21% compared with the performance of the currently used feedforward control scheme.<
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