Event-based PID Control for Anesthesia Administration: Effect on Hemodynamic Variables

This paper aims to investigate the effects of an event-based Proportional-Integral-Derivative control system for propofol and remifentanil coadministration on hemodynamics variables in general anesthesia. The validity of the considered control system with respect the anesthetic variables has already been proven in previous works. Here hemodynamic variables are also analyzed by using a specifically devised simulator. In general anesthesia, the balance between propofol and remifentanil is a key factor to optimize the automatic infusion of anesthesia during long and invasive surgical procedures. Indeed, the possibility given by the control system to change the ratio between the infusion rates of the two drugs during the surgery allows the anesthesiologist to handle the patient's hemodynamics in each situation, thus, providing an improved healthcare. Results obtained from simulations suggest that the devised control solution can provide a suitable depth of hypnosis of the patients by always keeping the hemodynamic variables inside their recommended values.