Designed and prototyped a closed-loop pressure control system for a VA-ECMO heart pump
Background
For our Senior Design Capstone, my team worked with cardiologist Dr. Kay Everett at Tufts Medical Center to explore improvements to the VA-ECMO heart pump system used for patients with end-stage heart failure. These pumps currently operate open-loop, requiring hospital staff to manually adjust pump speed in response to dangerous pressure changes. The goal of this project was to demonstrate the feasibility of closed-loop feedback control using a mock ECMO circuit with water. Our system detected simulated high-pressure events and automatically adjusted pump speed to restore pressure to a safe range.
Outcomes
The system detected high-pressure events via a pressure transducer and used PID control to adjust pump speed, stabilizing blood pressure
Developed a system that accurately modeled key characteristics of the human circulatory system, including Reynolds number and Pressure Recovery Coefficient
Water Reservoir Tank
Open/Close Value
Peristaltic Pump
24V Stepper Motor Driver
Arduino
Flow Restriction Valve
T-valves
Differential Pressure Transducer