Model-free immune therapy: A control approach to acute inflammation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a model-free control approach for managing acute inflammation in immune therapy, avoiding complex calibration issues of traditional model-based methods by using sensorless outputs and intelligent controllers in simulations.

Contribution

It proposes a novel model-free control strategy for immune therapy that handles sensorless outputs and patient variability, demonstrated through digital simulations.

Findings

Successful simulation of drug treatment strategies

Effective control without detailed patient models

Handling sensorless output regulation

Abstract

Control of an inflammatory immune response is still an ongoing research. Here, a strategy consisting of manipulating a pro and anti-inflammatory mediator is considered. Already existing and promising model-based techniques suffer unfortunately from a most difficult calibration. This is due to the different types of inflammations and to the strong parameter variation between patients. This communication explores another route via the new model-free control and its corresponding "intelligent" controllers. A "virtual" patient, i.e., a mathematical model, is only employed for digital simulations. A most interesting feature of our control strategy is the fact that the two outputs which must be driven are sensorless. This difficulty is overcome by assigning suitable reference trajectories to two other outputs with sensors. Several most encouraging computer simulations, corresponding to different drug treatment strategies, are displayed and discussed.