Observer design in switching control of neuromuscular blockade: clinical cases

This paper concerns the application of multiple model switched methods to the control of neuromuscular blockade of patients undergoing anaesthesia. Since the model representing the neuromuscular blockade process is subject to a high level of uncertainty due both to inter-patient variability and time variations, switched methods provide the adaptation capability needed to achieve the desired performance. The paper contributions are twofold: first, it is shown that, for the type of process control problem considered, the design of the associated observer must be carefully performed. Guidelines are provided for adequate selection of the characteristic polynomial defining the observer error dynamics. Second, clinical results using atracurium as blocking agent are reported in order to illustrate the use of the proposed control structure in actual clinical practice