PID Control System Design to Improve the Performance of Negative Pressure Wound Therapy

Treatment of infected and colonized diabetic ulcers requires a multidisciplinary approach, including wound cleansing to remove exudate, reduce bacterial load, and promote granulation tissue formation. Negative pressure therapy (NPWT) can help accelerate the healing of diabetic ulcers by suctioning exudate through a tube connected to a suction device, thereby accelerating the process of tissue regeneration. This study aims to increase local content in affordable and effective diabetic ulcer therapy methods by developing a simple and low-cost NPWT prototype. This prototype uses an ESP32 microcontroller as the programming processor, which includes PID (Proportional Integral Derivative) control, XGZP101DB1R sensor reading, therapy timer, as well as three modes of operation namely continuous, intermittent, and dynamic, alarm system and displayed on a Nextion TFT LCD. This tool uses a rechargeable battery power source. There is also a battery level indicator and charging status. Its lightweight and moderate design facilitates mobility. This research develops a negative pressure control system for vacuum DC motors using PID to improve the precision of instrumentation systems with feedback. By determining the Kp, Ki, and Kd values, pressure regulation is expected to be performed more accurately, providing additional information to the healthcare team. The prototype can read negative pressure from 0  to −150 mmHg and has been calibrated before testing to minimize errors. Tests were carried out using a Digital Pressure Meter (DPM). Negative pressure settings of −50, −75, −100, −125, and −150 mmHg were tested and performed in all three modes: continuous, intermittent, and dynamic. The test results show that the Negative Pressure Wound Therapy (NPWT) prototype based on PID control can achieve negative pressure according to the set point with the largest average error of 0%, 0%, and 1.13% and the lowest error of 0%, 0%, and 0.31% in continuous, intermittent, and dynamic modes, respectively. The highest error rate in pressure measurement using a Digital Pressure Meter (DPM) is 2.33%, and the lowest is 0.15% in all modes. In conclusion, the ESP32 system and PID control on the NPWT therapy device are effective in helping to accelerate the wound healing process and diabetic ulcer recovery with minimal error rates.