Patent ID: 6962155

Claim:
A lung ventilator control system for maintaining at a sustainable target level a respiratory drive of a patient assisted by a lung ventilator during inspiration, comprising: a detector of the electrical activity of a muscle of the patient indicative of a respiratory drive of said patient, said detector producing a respiratory drive signal in response to the detected electrical activity; a target drive signal supply which, in operation, produces a target drive signal of given amplitude, said target drive signal being representative of the sustainable respiratory drive target level; a signal comparator responsive to the respiratory drive signal and the target drive signal to produce a comparison signal indicative of whether the respiratory drive signal has an amplitude lower or higher than the amplitude of the target drive signal; a gain supply responsive to the comparison signal from the signal comparator to supply a gain, said gain supply having a gain-increasing unit which increases the gain when the comparison signal indicates that the amplitude of the respiratory drive signal is higher than the amplitude of the target drive signal, and a gain-decreasing unit which decreases the gain when the comparison signal indicates that the amplitude of the respiratory drive signal is lower than the amplitude of the target drive signal; and a gain multiplier responsive to the gain from the gain supply and the respiratory drive signal to multiply said respiratory drive signal by said gain and therefore produce a ventilator control signal for application to and control of the lung ventilator.