Modelling of heat diffusion for temperature controlled retinal photocoagulation

Abstract

Recent studies demonstrate the potential of temperature controlled retinal photocoagulation. The uniformity of the coagulated spots can be achieved by means of open-loop and closed-loop control. However, no safety-relevant parameters such as maximum laser power or maximum peak temperature have been integrated into the controller design yet. In model predictive control, these constraints can explicitly be taken into account in the controller design. We propose a new concept towards a safer treatment, which includes the consideration of the underlying heat diffusion equation for estimation and control.