Fuzzy logic control for intracranial pressure via continuous propofol sedation in a neurosurgical intensive care unit☆

Abstract 

The major goal of this paper is to provide automatically continuous propofol sedation for patients with severe head injury, unconsciousness, and mechanical ventilation in order to reduce the effect of agitation on intracranial pressure (ICP) using fuzzy logic control in a neurosurgical intensive care unit (NICU). Seventeen patients were divided into three groups in which control was provided with three different controllers. Experimental control periods were of 60min duration in all cases. Group A used a conventional rule-based controller (RBC), Group B a fuzzy logic controller (FLC), and Group C a self-organizing fuzzy logic controller (SOFLC). The performance of the controllers was analyzed by ICP pattern of sedation. The ICP pattern of errors was analyzed for mean and root mean square deviation (RMSD) for the entire duration of control (i.e., 1h). The results indicate that FLC can easily mimic the rule-base of human experts (i.e., neurosurgeons) to achieve stable sedation similar to the RBC group. Furthermore, the results also show that a SOFLC can provide more stable sedation of ICP pattern because it can modify the fuzzy rule-base to compensate for inter-patient variations.

Keywords: Intracranial pressure, Neurosurgical intensive care unit, Rule-based controller, Fuzzy logic controller, Self-organizing fuzzy logic controller