A Non-Invasive Physiological Control System of a Rotary Blood Pump Based on Preload Sensitivity: Use of Frank–Starling-Like Mechanism

Implanting rotary blood pumps (RBPs) has become the principal treatment for patients suffering from severe heart failure. There are still many challenges to address for RBP control systems. These problems include meeting the patient’s physiological perfusion, eliminating postoperative complications, as well as debugging the patient’s physiological control system (automatically and indiscriminately). This paper proposes a non-invasive adaptive control system based on the Frank–Starling-like mechanism (NAC-FSL) to solve these problems. This control system uses the motor speed of the rotary blood pump as the only input variable, and the pump flow was estimated by the motor speed for achieving non-invasive detection. Simultaneously, a cardiovascular reference model was developed to provide an appropriate real-time preload for heart failure patients. The Frank–Starling-like control baseline was tracked to obtain the desired reference average pump flow by using the preload. Avoiding suction was done by adopting the control baseline (CLn), which included a flat slope under a high preload. Moreover, the NAC-FSL system could potentially unload the left ventricle and provide a higher pump flow with a smaller error during the exercise state, as compared to the CSC system. Finally, the K value indicating the preload sensitivity in the NAC-FSL controller was optimized to meet the perfusion needs according to the hemodynamic parameters.