A Portable Meconium Aspirator With Fractional Augmented Pressure Control System

A simple and robust automatic suction pressure control system is designed for a newly developed portable meconium aspirator system (PMAS). From the step response data of the system, the transfer function (TF) of PMAS is obtained. Using the obtained TF, a proportional-integral-derivative controller in series with a fractional-order filter (PIDFF) is designed using a fractional-augmented internal model control (FAIMC) strategy. The adjustable parameter of the PIDFF controller is obtained using the reference to disturbance ratio (RDR) and random search algorithm. The designed controller is then simulated using MATLAB which is interfaced with the PMAS hardware. Simulation and experimental results in comparison with prevalent fractional-order schemes demonstrate the superior control performance achieved by the proposed pressure control system in terms of overshoot-free servo tracking and faster disturbance rejection. It is vindicated that the suction pressure is maintained in the desired value effectively amid disturbances and uncertainties in the obtained transfer function. Finally, a robust stability analysis of the suggested design is also carried out.