Comparative study of PID control and model predictive control for a microfluidic electroporation system

This paper describes a comparative study of two feedback control methods for a microfluidic electroporation (EP) system. The regulation of the transmembrane voltage (Vm) and nano-electropore radius (r) of HeLa cells on a micro EP chip was achieved using a linear Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) Controller and also Model Predictive Controller (MPC) based on the critical electric field for single-cell EP. Numerical simulations of static and dynamic responses of the two critical states, Vm and r, shows that feedback control can improve the cell viability and EP efficiency compared to open-loop (OL) system. The benefits and limitations of these two control methods for EP and possible future works have also been discussed.