Section: Bilateral Contracts and Grants with Industry

CARMAT SAS contract: Modeling and control of a Total Artificial Heart

Participants : Julien Bernard, Michel Sorine.

This is a cooperation with CARMAT SAS (Suresnes, France) on the development of a Total Artificial Heart.

This fully implantable artificial heart is designed to replace the two ventricles, possibly as an alternative to heart transplant from donors. In a first time, it will be used as a end-of-life treatment for patients waiting for a transplant. The first patients may receive this artificial organ in less than three years.

Compared with the mechanical hearts used up today, that are mainly LVAD (left ventricular assist devices) or with its main concurrent, the Abiocor implantable replacement heart system (Abiomed), the present artificial heart is designed to be highly reliable and with a low thromboembolism rate. It will allow longer waiting periods for heart transplants and even, in a next future, may be an alternative to these transplants.

The prosthesis uses two controlled pumps that are not in direct contact with the blood, eliminating hemolysis risk and is equipped with miniature sensors in order to have a full control of the heart rate and arterial blood pressure. Our objective is to improve the control strategies by mimicking the physiological feedback loops (Starling effect, baroreflex loop, ...) to allowing patients to live as normally as possible. In a first step, this year we have modeled the prosthesis with its present controller and its testbed, a “mock circulation system” (MCS). This year we have tried some control algorithms with the MCS.