Hardware-in-the-loop-simulation of the cardiovascular system, with assist device testing application

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Cardiovascular Systems Modeling
• Medical Device Evaluation

Background:

• Evaluating the efficacy of cardiac assist devices before in vivo trials is crucial.
• Existing methods may not fully capture the dynamic interactions within the cardiovascular system.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a hybrid in vitro system for evaluating cardiac assist device performance.
• To assess the effectiveness of dynamic cardiac compression on simulated failing hearts.

Main Methods:

• Integration of a physical (mechanical) heart simulator with a real-time computational model of the cardiovascular system.
• Utilizing the system to simulate various heart failure conditions and vascular pathologies.
• Real-time monitoring and control of the mechanical simulator based on the software model's output.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated the system's capability to evaluate control techniques for cardiac assist devices.
• Presented experimental results on the efficacy of prototype assist on healthy and weakened heart models.
• Analyzed the impact of asynchronous assist on cardiac output.

Conclusions:

• The combined physical and computational modeling approach provides a robust platform for preclinical evaluation of cardiac assist technologies.
• This technique allows for detailed assessment of device performance under diverse physiological conditions.
• The findings support the use of this hybrid system for optimizing cardiac assist device design and control strategies.