Case Study: University of Leeds advances heart assist device testing with National Instruments CompactRIO and LabVIEW

Controlling a Heart Simulator with CompactRIO and LabVIEW

The University of Leeds needed to develop a realistic and reconfigurable testing environment to advance a novel heart assist device, the iVAD, with the goal of reducing the need for animal testing. Their challenge was to create a reliable hardware-in-the-loop simulator that could physically and hemodynamically replicate in-vivo conditions for prolonged development trials.

The solution, implemented using National Instruments' CompactRIO hardware and LabVIEW software, created a stand-alone heart simulator. This system combined a real-time software blood flow model with a physical 3D mechanical heart, controlled by CompactRIO. This reliable, rugged National Instruments platform enabled the university to conduct essential prolonged testing of the device, which was not possible with a traditional computer, and provided a reconfigurable environment to replicate various patient conditions.

University Of Leeds

David Keeling

University Of Leeds