  This paper proposes a constrained control scheme for the control of the depth
of hypnosis during induction phase in clinical anesthesia. In contrast with
existing control schemes for propofol delivery, the proposed scheme guarantees
overdosing prevention while ensuring good performance. The core idea is to
reformulate overdosing prevention as a constraint, and then use the recently
introduced Explicit Reference Governor to enforce the constraint satisfaction
at all times. The proposed scheme is evaluated in comparison with a robust PID
controller on a simulated surgical procedure for 44 patients whose
Pharmacokinetic-Pharmacodynamic models have been identified using clinical
data. The results demonstrate that the proposed constrained control scheme can
deliver propofol to yield good induction phase response while preventing
overdosing in patients; whereas other existing schemes might cause overdosing
in some patients. Simulations show that mean rise time, mean settling time, and
mean overshoot of less than 5 [min], 8 [min], and 10%, respectively, are
achieved, which meet typical anesthesiologists' response specifications.
