Page 8 - Control Theory in Biomedical Engineering

Preface

As I write the preface for this book, Control Theory in Biomedical Engineering,
COVID-19 continues to spread, with more than 4 000 000 cases around the
world and more than 270 000 deaths as declared the World Health Orga-
nization (WHO). In this crucial moment, when developed countries like
the United State, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Germany
and Canada are facing difficult choices in their healthcare systems, regardless
of their sophisticated biomedical systems, advanced robotic systems, and
innovative technologies in resuscitation services. Developing countries with
very modest medical materials but high-level medical skills, like Tunisia, are
trying to control the crucial situation relying only on mathematical models
of the pandemic. Restrictive confinement measures are being implemented
as a way to “control” the spread of the virus. In all ways, “control” remains
the target solution.
In China, however, where COVID-19 began as an epidemic before
making its way around the world in a matter of months, no new domestic
cases were reported. According to recent press reports, several sophisticated
medical robots are being deployed there in an effort to combat the spread
of the deadly virus. Robotics is being used to sanitize hospitals, some of
which use ultraviolet light to clean, to reduce workers’ exposure to the virus
as much as possible. Besides disinfection and street patrols, the robots are
also deployed to deliver food and support nurses in communication with
patients in quarantine to reduce human-to-human contact. Dancing robots
lead patients in exercises and entertain bored quarantined patients. Robots
are used to patrol public spaces to identify people who may be running a
fever. Robots completely replaced humans in a coronavirus care hospital
in Wuhan, China, where a humanoid robot worked 24/7 measuring
heart rates and blood oxygen levels via smart bracelets and rings worn by
patients.
Undoubtedly, mathematical modeling, control theory, and medical
robotics are fundamental sciences for healthcare systems. Modeling-based
control is of huge importance as it can be used to understand feedback paths
in physiological systems, establish medical diagnoses, understand the inter-
relationship among physiological variables in the human body, and predict
the dynamic behavior of some diseases and epidemics. They can contribute
to regulate human physiology via commercial artificial organs and assistive

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