Process Control: Modeling, Design, and Simulation

M12.5. Blood Pressure Control in Post-Operative Patients

Health care is an important area that can benefit from control systems technology. For example, after undergoing open-chest surgery (such as cardiac bypass or lung surgery), many patients have a higher than desired blood pressure; one reason that a lower blood pressure is needed is to reduce bleeding from sutures. Typically, a critical care nurse will set up a continuous infusion of the drug sodium nitroprusside to reduce the patient's blood pressure. The nurse must make frequent checks of blood pressure and change the drug infusion rate to maintain the desired blood pressure. In a sense, the nurse is serving as a feedback controller. There is a clear motivation to develop an automated ...