MPC-based artificial pancreas accounting for circadian variability of insulin sensitivity

In the context of closed-loop glycemic control, MPC has shown the skillfulness to improve glucose regulation in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM). To reduce its complexity, many of the proposed control strategies have been designed based on linear time-invariant (LTI) models, without accounting for intraday parametric fluctuations. In this work, a pulsatile Zone Model Predictive Control (pZMPC) is examined under a realistic patterns of intraday insulin sensitivity ( SI ), according to the recent updates of the FDA-approved UVA/Padova simulator. Nominal updates of the postprandial insulin sensitivity are explicitly taken into account in the control-oriented model to improve the glucose predictions. The resulting controller is tested ‘in-silico’ with the FDA-approved UVA/Padova simulator, while its behavior is analyzed by comparing the usual statistical metrics with the corresponding time-invariant configuration. As expected, results show significant improvements, which justifies the (reasonable) increment in the controller complexity.