Velocity-weighting to prevent controller-induced hypoglycemia in MPC of an artificial pancreas to treat T1DM

The design of a Model Predictive Control (MPC) strategy for the closed-loop operation of an Artificial Pancreas (AP) to treat type 1 diabetes mellitus is considered. The contribution of this paper is to propose a velocity-weighting mechanism, within an MPC problem´s cost function, that facilitates penalizing predicted hyperglycemic blood-glucose excursions based on the predicted blood-glucose levels´ rates of change. The method provides the control designer some freedom for independently shaping the AP´s uphill versus downhill responses to hyperglycemic excursions; of particular emphasis in this paper is the downhill response. The proposal aims to tackle the dangerous issue of controller-induced hypoglycemia following large hyperglycemic excursions, e.g., after meals, that results in part due to the large delays of subcutaneous glucose sensing and subcutaneous insulin infusion - the case considered here. The efficacy of the proposed approach is demonstrated using the University of Virginia/Padova metabolic simulator with both unannounced and announced meal scenarios.