Robust estimation of urea concentration during dialytic treatment

During dialysis it is important to estimate the urea concentration in the patient from measurements available only in the blood. We design a Kalman estimator based on a bicompartmental model of the urea concentration dynamics. In order to deal with the high interpatient variability of the model parameters, a robust design approach has been pursued which optimizes an average performance index. The applicability of other approaches is finally discussed.