Biomedical Applications
The human body is a complex system that contains many different control loops to maintain life. When one of these feedback loops is not functioning properly, medical devices are used to replace their functionality accordingly. In our research projects, we aim to model the nonlinear behavior of the human body, estimate appropriate parameters for the attending physician and by means of adaptive, safe controllers to ultimately improve the health of the patient.
VIEshunt: Toward a SmartShunt for Hydrocephalus
Hydrocephalus is a medical condition in which excessive accumulation of fluid in the brain causes neurological damage. Up to this date no treatment exists and the most common form of therapy still relies on passive mechanical shunt systems to drain the excessive fluid out of the brain into the abdominal area. The project VIEshunt is our commitment to leading hydrocephalus therapy into the 21st century by developing a ventricular intelligent electromechanical shunt system for hydrocephalus patients.
MRI-conditional Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation
Congenital heart disease (CHD) describes one of the most common birth defects in humans with a prevalence of around 7.2 per 1’000 births in Europe. Around 7% of newborn with CHD require immediate open-heart surgery within the first 6 months of their life. During these surgical interventions, a cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) is used to sustain circulation and oxygenation of the blood. However, the operating point of these CPBs has not yet been determined sufficiently in regards of minimizing irreversible brain damage during surgery. A promising approach to gain more insights into these dynamics would be to use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) while the CPB is attached.
Physiological Adaptation of Ventricular Assist Devices
The Zurich Heart project is a multidisciplinary and inter-institutional cooperation between the University of Zurich (UZH), the University Hospital Zurich (USZ), the German Heart Center Berlin and ETH Zurich aimed at developing new technologies for left ventricular assist devices (LVADs). The Download Zurich Heart project was accepted as strategic project by Hochschulmedizin Zürich in 2012.
Currently, more than 23 million people worldwide suffer from heart failure. Mechanical circulatory support, i.e. an implantable mechanical pump, has proven a viable solution for such patients, especially given the shortage of donor hearts for transplants.
The existing technology is mainly based on continuous flow pump operating principles. One of the problems of current clinical LVADs is that they operate at a predefined speed, which is chosen by the physician, without being adapted to the physiological requirements. This lack of adaptation causes various problems, which affect the patient’s heart and circulation. For instance, ventricular suction due to high unloading can lead to myocardial damage. Low unloading can also cause under-perfusion, flow stagnation or even regurgitation and lung edema.
breathe: A Low-Cost Ventilator For All
breathe is a low-cost, high-tech mechanical ventilator designed for transport and emergency scenarios in low-and-middle-income countries. This low-cost, unconventional system design poses new challenges for control compared to state-of-the-art commercial ventilators.