Section: Contracts and Grants with Industry

Modeling and control of a Total Artificial Heart (CARMAT SAS)

Participants : Karima Djabella, Michel Sorine, Frédéric Vallais.

This project is the beginning of our cooperation with the newly created CARMAT SAS (Suresnes, France) start-up that will continue the development of the prototype of the Total Artificial Heart designed by EADS (European Aeronautics Defense & Space) under the direction of Professor Alain Carpentier (who won the 2007 Lasker Award for his earlier work with artificial heart valves).

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). We are first proposing some improvements of the MCS.

This year we have studied the filling of the prosthesis during special conditions (e.g. Valsalva maneuver).