  This note describes the design and testing of a programmable pulsatile flow
pump using an Arduino micro-controller. The goal of this work is to build a
compact and affordable system that can relatively easily be programmed to
generate physiological waveforms. The system described here was designed to be
used in an in-vitro set-up for vascular access hemodynamics research, and hence
incorporates a gear pump that can deliver up to 1.5 l/min in a test flow loop.
After a number of simple identification experiments to assess the dynamic
behaviour of the system, a feed-forward control routine was implemented. The
resulting system was shown to be able to produce the targeted patient-specific
waveform with less than 3.6% error. Finally, we outline how to further increase
the accuracy of the system, and how to adapt it to specific user needs.
