Fuzzy logic in anaesthesia

Abstract

The development of on-line drug administration strategies in operating theatres represents a highly safety-critical situation. The usefulness of different levels of simulation prior to clinical trials has been shown in previous studies in anaesthesia. Thus, in earlier work on pole-placement self-tuning for muscle relaxation, a dual computer real-time simulation was undertaken, subsequent to algorithm validation via off-line simulation. In the present work, supervised fuzzy rule-based control algorithms are being used. The control software was implemented on the actual machine to be used in theatre, while another computer acted as a real-time patient simulator. It provides a fast design and simulation environment for safety-critical validation. The resultant validated controllers are now being used clinically.