Hardware-in-the-Loop Test Bench for Artificial Lungs

Extracorporeal lung assist therapy is a life saving treatment for acute lung failure patients. While developing such systems current technology requires extensive testing in animal experiments. These are complex, time consuming, lack repeatability and are subject to ethical considerations. We propose the development of a hardware-in-the-loop test bench to overcome these limitations. In such a test bench the device under test can be operated under the same conditions as in a live experiment while at the same time providing exact controllability. This can be achieved by providing physiological media conditions at the interface of the machine (blood in- and outlets). The reference values for these are provided by an integrated mathematical model of patient physiology. Test show that this enables realistic testing of interaction with physiological conditions.