ACTIVA: Automatic Control in Total Intravenous Anesthesia

We are anesthesiologists and engineers that work together to develop an automatic control system in total intravenous anesthesia. The object is a closed-loop system able to make a smooth and fast induction (avoiding too deep anesthesia) and able to maintain adequate anesthesia during surgical procedure.

We use Bispectral Index (BIS) for deep of hypnosis (DoH) and Graseby pumps for propofol and remifentanil infusion. The control software and the graphic user interface (GUI) were developed by Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering of Università degli studi di Brescia (Prof. Antonio Visioli).

We believe that closed loop anesthesia can bring benefits in clinical practice:

More freedom for the anesthesiologist during induction phase
Avoid problems caused by distraction or fatigue
Better anesthetic level
Better hemodynamic stability
Better patient wake-up time
Less drugs administration

All these advantages can bring to a reduction of side effects and better post-operative recovery giving a new standard of care in total intravenous anesthesia.

If you are interested in the project please contact us, we’ll working together for patient care!

Our Paper on the topic:

Padula, C. Ionescu , N. Latronico , M. Paltenghi , A. Visioli , G. Vivacqua “A gain-scheduled PID controller for propofol dosing in anesthesia” in: Proceedings 9th IFAC Symposium on Biological and Medical Systems, 2015, pp. 545–550 .
Padula, C. Ionescu, N. Latronico, M. Paltenghi, A. Visioli, G. Vivacqua, “Inversion-based propofol dosing for intravenous induction of hypnosis”, Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation, Vol. 39, pp. 481-494, 2016.

F. Padula, C. Ionescu, N. Latronico, M. Paltenghi, A. Visioli, G. Vivacqua, “Optimized PID control of depth of hypnosis in anesthesia”, Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, Vol. 144, pp. 21-35, 2017.
L. Merigo, M. Beschi, F. Padula, N. Latronico, M. Paltenghi, A. Visioli, “Event-based control of depth of hypnosis in anesthesia”, Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, Vol. 147, pp. 63-83, 2017

Merigo, M. Beschi, F. Padula, N. Latronico, M. Paltenghi, A. Visioli, “Event based control of Propofol and Remifentanil coadministration during clinical Anesthesia” in: 3^rdInternational Conference on Event-Based Control, Communication and Signal Processing, Funchal, Madeira (Portugal), 24-26 May 2017.
Merigo, F. Padula, N. Latronico, T. Medonça, M. Paltenghi, P. Rocha Malonek and A. Visioli, “On the identification of Propofol effects on anesthesia using BIS measurements”, 20th IFAC 2017 World Congress, Toulouse, France, 9-14 July 2017.
Merigo, M. Beschi, F. Padula, N. Latronico, M. Paltenghi, A. Visioli, Controllo a eventi della somministrazione di Propofol e Remifentanil durante anestesia clinica, Automazione e Strumentazione, Novembre 2017
Merigo, F. Padula, A. Pawlowski, S. Dormido, J. L. Guzmán Sánchez, N. Latronico, M. Paltenghi, and A. Visioli, A model-based control scheme for depth of hypnosis in anesthesia Biomedical Signal Processing and Control, 42:216-229, 2018.
Merigo, F. Padula, N. Latronico, T. Mendonça, M. Paltenghi, P. Rocha, A. Visioli, Optimized PID tuning for the automatic control of neuromuscular blockade 3rd IFAC Conference on Advances in Proportional-Integral-Derivative Control, Gent, Belgium, 9-11 May 2018.
Merigo, M. Beschi, F. Padula, N. Latronico, T. Mendonça, M. Paltenghi, A. Visioli, Optimization of PIDPlus Control for Neuromuscular Blockade During General Anesthesia, 4th International Conference on Event-Based Control, Communication and Signal Processing, Perpignan, France, 27-29 June 2018.
Guo, A. Medvedev, L. Merigo, N. Latronico, M. Paltenghi, A. Visioli, Synthetic Patient Database of Drug Effect in General Anesthesia for Evaluation of Estimation and Control Algorithms, 18th IFAC Symposium on System Identification, Stockholm, Sweden, 9-11 July 2018.
Merigo, M. Beschi, F. Padula, N. Latronico, M. Paltenghi, A. Visioli, Optimized PID Control of Propofol and Remifentanil Coadministration for General Anesthesia Commun Nonlinear Sci Numer Simulat, 72 :194–212, 2019.