An adaptive drug infusion system

In order to reduce the overall size and power consumption of ambulatory drug infusion systems, and to provide higher delivery accuracy, faster start-up, and more rapid occlusion detection, a non-contacting, low-power thermal time-of-flight technology has been used to provide a pressure-based miniature wearable drug infusion system that automatically compensates in real time for changes in pressure, viscosity, and flow path geometry.

Prototypes have been designed, built, and tested on the bench and on animals.

For liquid volumes ranging from 30 nL to 100 microL, the measured accuracy and precision of delivery were better than 1%. Tests on 30-kg swine showed delivery within the study accuracy.

The performance of the prototypes demonstrates that real-time compensation of flow variables provides significant performance improvements in therapeutic infusion.