Closing the loop: the adicol experience

The objective of the project Advanced Insulin Infusion using a Control Loop (ADICOL) was to develop a treatment system that continuously measures and controls the glucose concentration in subjects with type 1 diabetes. The modular concept of the ADICOL's extracorporeal artificial pancreas consisted of a minimally invasive subcutaneous glucose system, a handheld PocketPC computer, and an insulin pump (D-Tron, Disetronic, Burgdorf, Switzerland) delivering subcutaneously insulin lispro. The present paper describes a subset of ADICOL activities focusing on the development of a glucose controller for semi-closed-loop control, an in silico testing environment, clinical testing, and system integration. An incremental approach was adopted to evaluate experimentally a model predictive glucose controller. A feasibility study was followed by efficacy studies of increasing complexity. The ADICOL project demonstrated feasibility of a semi-closed-loop glucose control during fasting and fed conditions with a wearable, modular extracorporeal artificial pancreas.