Fractional Order Modeling and Control of Type 1 Diabetes with Genetic Algorithm Optimization

Type 1 diabetes mellitus is a disorder characterized by elevated blood glucose levels resulting from inadequate or missing insulin synthesis. To regulate glycemia, diabetic patients require exogenous insulin infusion. This paper presents a comparison of four control strategies for autonomous regulation of glycemia, i.e., integer and fractional order variations of proportional integral control and sliding mode control. Genetic algorithms are employed for optimizing glycemic regulation, that are validated through numerical simulations on the fractional Bergman glucoregulatory model in presence of meal disturbance. It is found that the fractional version of the sliding mode controller exhibits superior performance in terms in time in normal glycemic range and time spent in hypoglycemia, also showing robustness properties with respect to meal increments.