Synthesising life-sciences and control engineering: an outline survey and a practical example

There is an increasing interest in life science related areas in the electrical and control engineering community [1]. One manifestation of this interest is the development of interdisciplinary programmes, such as the B.Sc. in Medical Physics and Bioengineering, offered by the Dublin Institute of Technology from September 2005. A significant amount of research work in control engineering has focused on aspects of human physiological system, for example blood glucose regulation [2], cardiovascular modelling and control [3], and limb control [4]. There is an increasing emphasis on interdisciplinary research; in recognition of this, the Institute of Electrical Engineers (IEE) has starting publishing, from June 2004, a new journal entitled IEE Proceedings on Systems Biology [5], which aims to study intra- and inter-cellular dynamics, using systems and signals oriented approaches. The contribution provides an outline survey, of the synergistic work between life sciences and control engineering, which has been performed. In addition, the author details the specific example of control engineering concepts applied to the human eye.