Model predictive control for retinal laser treatment at 1 kHz

Abstract: Laser photocoagulation is a technique applied in the treatment of retinal diseases. While this is often done manually or using simple control schemes, we pursue an optimization-based approach, namely Model Predictive Control (MPC), to enforce bounds on the peak temperature and, thus, safety during the medical treatment procedure - despite the spot-dependent absorption of the tissue. To this end, a repetition rate of 1 kHz is desirable rendering the real-time requirements a major challenge. We present a tailored MPC scheme using parametric model reduction, an extended Kalman filter for the parameter and state estimation, and suitably constructed stage costs and verify its applicability both in simulation and experiments with porcine eyes. Moreover, we give some insight on the implementation specifically tailored for fast numerical computations.