Insulin limitation in the Artificial Pancreas by Sliding Mode Reference Conditioning and Insulin Feedback: an in silico comparison * *This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) through grant DPI2013-46982-C2-1-R and the EU through FEDER funds.

Abstract

Abstract Sliding Mode Reference Conditioning (SMRC) has been recently proposed as a new technique to limit insulin-on-board in an artificial pancreas system. It is based on the glucose set point modulation by means of an outer control loop to avoid violation of imposed insulin-onboard limits. Clinical evaluation under a mixed meal challenge has demonstrated, in combination with a PD controller, a significant improvement in postprandial control as compared to insulin pump therapy. However, advantages of SMRC as compared to the widely used Insulin Feedback in PID-based artificial pancreas systems have not been thoroughly investigated. As well, SMRC offers many possibilities of criteria for the selection of insulin-on-board limits according to the expected role of the outer loop with respect to the main controller. In this paper, all these aspects are investigated through an in silico study in face of a challenging scenario with multiple sources of variability.