Calibrating plural pump fluid flow system

Abstract: A blood fractionating apparatus comprises a first length of tubing (112,116) connected between a needle and a blood first fraction outlet (118). A separator (130) is connected in the tubing (112,116) between the needle and outlet (118). A blood pump (101) and a first fraction pump (102) are connected in the tubing respectively upstream and downstream of the separator (130). A second length of tubing (120) is connected at one end with the separator (130) and at its other end has a second fraction outlet (121). A haemostat (122) is provided along the second tubing length (120), upstream of the second fraction outlet (121). A sensor (200), operable to sense fluid pressure or volume in the first tubing length (112,116), is connected to the first tubing length (112,116) upstream of the separator (130). A microprocessor is connected with the sensor (200) and pumps (101,102) to derive relative flow characteristics of the individual pumps (101,102).

Description: This invention generally relates to apparatus for calibrating relative pump flow rates between two pumps in a common fluid flow system. The invention is particularly suited for accurately calibrating relative fluid flow rates achieved by independent pumps within a disposable plastic fluid flow path of a blood constituent processing system. Where plural independently controlled pumps are included in a common fluid flow system, it is sometimes necessary to accurately calibrate the relative flow rates between the various pumps within the system. Such requirements may typically arise in a blood plasma filtering system (e.g. where whole blood is extracted from a donor, processed to remove plasma and to return the residual packed red blood cells to the donor) and/or in a platelet separation system (e.g. where whole blood from a donor is processed to remove platelets and/or plasma and the residual blood constituents are returned to the donor). In such a blood constituent processing system, there may be a desire to accurately calibrate the relative flow rates of the blood pumped into a filter (or other fractionating device) and the packed cells output from the filter (and/or of the filtrated or separated fraction also being output from the filter). WO-A-86/02858, which is used as a basis for the preamble of claim 1 discloses a blood fractionating apparatus and a method of calibrating the blood pump and the packed cells pump which are positioned respectively upstream and downstream of a fractionating device of the apparatus. In such blood constituent processing systems, for obvious health reasons, the fluid flow path is typically defined by disposable plastic tubing. Such tubing may be manually inserted into conventional pulsatile pumps (e.g. where a rotating member periodically engages and compresses the tubing in a travelling wave type of motion so as to positively displace any fluid contained within the tubing in a pulsatile manner and in a direction determined by the direction of rotation), electromagnetically operated clamps (e.g. to act as "on/off" valves which controllably pinch or close off the plastic tubing at desired control points), etc. The rotational motion of each pump may be electrically monitored using hall-effect pulse generators. In one type of system, a branched section of the tubing includes a trapped compressible gas communicating with a pressure sensor so as to permit fluid pressure variations to be monitored. Variations from one set of disposable plastic tubing to another (e.g. as further influenced by instantaneous variations in ambient temperature, pressures, flow rates, etc) may cause significant flow variations. During an initial "priming" mode of such blood constituent processing systems, it is typical to have a fluid flow path (e.g. including the anticoagulant insertion line and the whole blood extraction line) disposed between two pumps (e.g. the anticoagulant metering pump and the whole blood extraction pump) filled with liquid and including an arrangement for monitoring the fluid pressure in this fluid flow path (e.g. a trapped air or other gas or fluid column extending to a pressure sensor). According to Claim 1 there is provided a blood fractionating apparatus for fractionating blood into at least first and second fractions, the apparatus including a first fluid path from blood supply means to a first fraction outlet with separating means connected in said first fluid path, a blood pump connected in said first fluid path upstream of said fractionating means, a first fraction pump connected in said first fluid path downstream of said fractionating means, a second fluid path from the fractionating means to a second fraction outlet, calibration means including sensing means operable to sense changes in pressure in the first fluid path, and control means connected with said sensing means and said pumps, the control means being operable to cause the pumps to inject fluid into the first fluid path and withdraw fluid from the first fluid path at respectively associated nominal rates, the control means being further operable in response to said sensing means to determine the rate-of-change of fluid pressure in the first fluid path in response to said injection and withdrawal to derive relative flow characteristics of the individual pumps, closure means being provided for closing said second fluid path upstream of said second fraction outlet said sensing means being operable to sense changes in pressure or fluid volume in the first fluid path and said control means being operable to determine the rate of change of pressure or fluid volume in said first fluid path. It is also possible to use the apparatus to calibrate the blood pump relative to the packed cell pump in a typical plasmapheresis system where the rate of plasma filtrate extraction is determined by the difference between the pumped blood input rate and the pumped packed cell output rate. During an initial calibration phase, the plasma filtrate output line is temporarily clamped shut while the blood pump and packed cell pump rates are adjusted to achieve a constant average fluid pressure therebetween. The required relative pump driving rate then provides a relative fluid flow rate calibration between these two pumps. At the end of such calibration procedure, one will know the relative pump flow control commands required to actually achieve equal flow rates and, accordingly, this provides a relative flow rate calibration factor relating the actual flow rate of one pump to the other with a particular set of disposable plastic tubing in place. These as well as other objects and advantages of the invention may be better appreciated by carefully studying the following detailed description of a presently preferred exemplary embodiment, when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, of which: Figure 1 is a schematic block diagram of an apparatus not according to the present invention, the apparatus having plural pumps and a closed fluid path; Figure 2 is a flow diagram of a computer controlling subroutine or program useable for the pump controller of Figure 1; Figure 3 is an explanatory graph depicting a typical rate-of-change of fluid pressure with respect to time in the closed fluid flow path of Figure 1; Figure 4 is a schematic depiction of a portion of a blood constituent processing system not according to the present invention whereby the system embodies a closed fluid flow path between two independently controlled pumps in a manner which is similar to that depicted in Figure 1; Figure 5 is a schematic block diagram of a control system which may be suitable for use as the controller in the apparatus of Figures 1 and/or 4; Figure 6 depicts a blood constituent processing system according to the present invention where a blood pump and a packed cell pump are flow calibrated relative to one another; and Figure 7 is a graphical depiction of the rate-of-change of pressure versus pump flow error rate. The system of Figure 1, which is not according to the present invention, includes plural pumps (e.g. pump #1 and pump #2) interconnected by a closed fluid flow path 12 (e.g. a disposable plastic tubing as in a blood constituent processing system). In the exemplary embodiment, pump #1 and pump #2 are both peristaltic pumps of conventional design. During sustained system operation, a fluid may be input at 14 (e.g. whole blood) and mixed with a metered supply of fluid #1 (e.g. an anticoagulant solution) while being pumped onward to other portions of the apparatus at 16 (e.g. to a plasma or platelet separator/filter device, etc). Another fluid supply #2 may also be connected with pump #2 (e.g. so as to provide a source of saline solution during initial priming mode operations or the like). A pressure measuring branch 18 of the closed fluid flow path, may typically include a trapped air portion communicating with an air pressure transducer 20. An overall system controller may include a microprocessor-based pump controller 22 which is capable of independently controlling the flow rates of pump #1 and pump #2 and which also has access to pressure data derived from the air pressure transducer 20. Those in the art will recognise that there may be many other configurations of a closed fluid flow path extending between plural pumps which may be independently controlled and for which accurate relative flow rate calibration factors are desired. In this embodiment, the relative pump flow calibration system includes a closed fluid flow path which has both incompressible liquids and compressible gases therewithin such that the gas pressure can be used to monitor the rate-of-change of fluid pressure. A relative flow rate calibration of the two pumps with respect to each other is obtained by constraining the system to pump into the closed flow path with one pump and to pump out of the closed flow path with the other pump using nominally identical flow commands. If the pumps actually have equal flow rate calibration factors, then there should be a rate-of-change of fluid pressure of substantially zero maintained within the interconnecting closed fluid flow path. By monitoring any detected variations in the rate-of-change of fluid pressure (or contained fluid volume) variations within the closed fluid flow path, any calibration errors can be detected. The hardware architecture of the microprocessor-based pump controller 22 may be of conventional design (e.g. a microprocessor chip, RAM/ROM chips, I/O chips, analog-to-digital convertors, etc. conventionally interconnected). The computer controlling program or software during normal system operation may be of conventional design (possibly modified so as to include a multiplicative calibration factor when generating pump control commands). The controller 22 also may be a "hardwired" controller. Referring to Figure 2, upon entry into the pump calibrate subroutine 200, some initial "housekeeping" details may be attended to such as those depicted at block 202. For example, a counter N may be reset to a contents of 1 and a visual operator display may be activated so as to request closure of the fluid path interconnecting the plural pumps in the system (e.g. by closing the valves near inlet 14 and outlet 16 or by applying suitable hemostats, clamps, etc). Alternatively, if the system includes suitably placed electromagnetically controlled tubing clamps or the like, then the controller 22 may automatically close off a fluid flow path interconnecting the plural pumps in the system. A check may be made at step 204 for the existence of a closed fluid system (e.g. by monitoring a manually activated switch and/or by performing automated stimulus/response testing routines as will be apparent). Once a properly closed fluid system is in place, control is passed to step 206 where pump #1 is activated to insert fluid into the closed system at a pump rate X while pump #2 is simultaneously activated to extract fluid from the closed system at pump rate Y -- the nominal pump rates X and Y being initially selected to be equal. A pressure reading is then taken at 208 (possibly after some finite "settling" time to permit start up of the pumps) after which a wait loop is entered at step 210 (e.g. 4.25 seconds). Upon exist from the wait loop 210, a new pressure reading is taken at 212 and tested at 214 so as to detect any pressure changes in excess of some predetermined positive or negative "noise" value. If a significant pressure change is detected, then in block 215 a correction term proportional to the error (through multiplication factor Kg) is applied, and control is passed to block 216 where it is determined whether the pressure change is in the increasing or decreasing direction. If the pressure change increased, then the pump rate Y of pump #2 is increased (or, alternatively, the pump rate X is decreased) by the correction term and control is passed back to the wait loop 210. On the other hand, if the pressure change was in the decreasing direction, then pump rate Y is decreased (or, alternatively, pump rate X is increased) by a suitable correction term and control is again passed back to the wait loop 210. If no significant pressure change is observed, then the N counter is tested at 222 to see if it yet equals a maximum preset value corresponding to the required time interval of approximately constant pressure. If the required constant pressure period is not yet at hand, then the N counter is incremented at 224 and control is passed back to the wait loop 210. On the other hand, after a sufficiently long period of constant pressure has been detected, then exit will be made to block 226 where the then existing relative pump rates X, Y will be stored away as pump flow calibration factors and a normal exit may be made at 228 from the pump calibrate subroutine. A typical graph of the rate-of-change of pressure within the closed flow path as a function of time during operation of the calibration process is depicted at Figure 3. Here, it will be seen that an initial portion of the pressure versus time curve exhibits a slope which itself indicates the relative pump calibration error. The value of this slope is measured in order to calculate the appropriate pump flow calibration factors X, Y directly based upon such a slope measurement. Such measurement involves some error since slope is proportional to flow rate errors and volume of trapped air 19 (see Figure 1). After matched pump calibration has been achieved, it will be seen in Figure 3 that the slope of the pressure versus time curve (i.e. rate-of-change of pressure), reduces to an approximately zero value. Figure 4 is similar to Figure 1 but more realistically depicts a portion of a typical blood constituent processing system and a portion of a typical disposable plastic tubing harness which is typically threaded into various pumping, clamping, pressure sensing, etc. apparatus which is, in turn, under control of a microprocessor-based controller. During a priming mode, the fluid flow path between the anticoagulant pump and the blood pump is filled with liquid (thereby trapping a quantity of air in a branch of the tubing communicating with the pressure sensor). A hemostat or clamp is then placed at the junction of the anticoagulant tubing and of the blood extraction tubing so that the two liquids (anticoagulant solution and saline solution in this preliminary priming mode) form a closed system between the two pumps, with the air region and pressure sensor monitoring the closed system. Pressure then builds up or falls as the two pumps are commanded to produce the same nominal flow rate. A control system such as that depicted in Figure 5 automatically observes the rate-of-change of pressure over a time period and responsively controls at least one of the pumps to change its actual flow rate. As previously mentioned, the necessary calibration factor relating the relative actual flow rates of the pumps with a given disposable plastic tubing harness in place is obtained by measuring the slope or rate of change of the pressure versus time curve and/or by empirically modifying the relative pump calibration factors so as to null any detected pressure changes. For example, a modified pump flow constant may be generated so as to direct one of the pumps actually to rotate faster or slower for a specified nominal liquid flow rate. After sufficient precision has been attained, the calibration procedure is complete. As depicted in Figure 5, both pumps are initially commanded to flow at a rate of 10 millilitres per minute as represented schematically at block 500 in Figure 5. This command is multiplied by an anticoagulant pump flow constant or calibration factor X at block 502 and by a blood pump flow constant or calibration factor Y at block 504 before actually being used to control the speed of the anticoagulant pump at block 506 and the blood pump at 508. The two pumps then act upon the closed fluid vessel system (including air) as depicted at block 510 and cause an air pressure response which is measured at block 512. A timed sampler 514 then feeds again adjustment control block 516 where the calibration factors X, Y are adjusted relative to one another so as to correct for any noted pump flow rate errors. A typical blood constituent processing system according to the present invention is depicted in Figure 6. Here the disposable plastic tubing extends on the output side of the blood pump 101 to a plasma filter 130 and on to a pumped packed cell output flow 118 from the filter 130. In operation, the flow rate of plasma filtrate (e.g. 6ml/min) may be determined by controlling the pumped rate of blood input (e.g. 50ml/min) relative to the pumped rate of packed cell output (e.g. 44ml/min). As in the Figure 4 embodiment, a branch of tubing between the two pumps includes a volume of trapped air communicating with a pressure transducer 200. After the system is filled with liquid, the blood pump 101 may be operated near the expected rate of use (or perhaps initially slower) while the plasma filtrate output 121 is clamped shut and the packed cell pump 102 is operated at a nominally equal rate. The pressure P2 will begin to rise or fall due to any difference in actual pump rates. That compliance due to the air pocket in the tubing to the pressure transducer keeps the rate-of-change of fluid pressure within reasonable bounds for initial errors in flow rates. Typically, this calibration procedure may be performed after some initial filtration has occurred and blood plasma has already filled the plasma filter 130 and tubing down to the clamp point 122 on the plasma output tube. Figure 7 illustrates the resulting rate of change of fluid pressure and its first derivative (with respect to time) for a regularly changing relative difference in pump flow rates. An iterative or other procedure may then be employed (as before) to determine relative pump flow rate calibration factors which may thereafter be used to achieve accurate relative pump flow rates. Following such measurement, the relative flow rates can be temporarily shifted to bring the pressure within a normal range (e.g. as measured just prior to plasma clamp closure) before re-opening the plasma clamp. As will now be appreciated, if one of the pumps can also be calibrated with respect to an absolute standard (e.g. if the packed cell pump delivers its output to a collection reservoir which is carried by an electronic weighing or other volume/mass/weight measuring device), then one can, in turn, use the relative pump flow calibration factors to derive absolute calibration factors for the other pump. If pulsatile pumps are employed, there will, of course, be periodic pressure/volume pulses which may be disregarded (e.g. by employing suitable low pass "averaging" filters) in the calibration procedures.

Claims: A blood fractionating apparatus for fractionating blood into at least first and second fractions, the apparatus including a first fluid path (112,116) from blood supply means (114) to a first fraction outlet (118) with separating means (130) connected in said first fluid path (112,116), a blood pump (101) connected in said first fluid path (112,116) upstream of said fractionating means (130), a fraction pump (102) connected in said first fluid path (112,116) downstream of said fractionating means (130), a second fluid path (120) from the fractionating means to a second fraction outlet (121), calibration means including sensing means (200) operable to sense changes in pressure in the first fluid path (112,116), and control means connected with said sensing means (200) and said pumps (101,102), the control means being operable to cause the pumps to inject fluid into the first fluid path (112,116) and withdraw fluid from the first fluid path (112,116) at respectively associated nominal rates, the control means being further operable in response to said sensing means (200) to determine the rate of change of fluid pressure in the first fluid path (112,116) in response to said injection and withdrawal to derive relative flow characteristics of the individual pumps (101,102), characterised by closure means (122) being provided for closing said second fluid path (120) upstream of said second fraction outlet (121), said sensing means (200) being operable to sense changes in pressure or fluid volume in the first fluid path (112,116) and said control means being operable to determine the rate of change of pressure or fluid volume in said first fluid path (112,116). Apparatus of Claim 1, wherein the control means is operable to control the nominal rate of at least one of said pumps (101,102) in response to said relative flow characteristics so as to maintain a rate-of-change of fluid pressure or volume in said first fluid path (112,116) of approximately zero. Apparatus as in Claim 2 wherein said control means is operable to record the relationship between the nominal pump flow rates required to maintain said approximately zero rate-of-change of fluid pressure or volume.

Inventors: PRINCE PAUL R, PRINCE, PAUL R.
Applicants: BAXTER INT, BAXTER INTERNATIONAL INC.
Application year: 1987
Main classification: A61M1
IPC codes: A61M1, A61M37, F04B49