Abstract
This study proposes an effective positive control design strategy for cancer
treatment by resorting to the combination of immunotherapy and chemotherapy.
The treatment objective is to transfer the initial number of tumor cells and
immune-competent cells from the malignant region into the region of benign
growth where the immune system can inhibit tumor growth. In order to achieve
this goal, a new modeling strategy is used that is based on Takagi-Sugen. A
Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model is derived based on the Stepanova nonlinear model
that enables a systematic design of the controller. Then, a positive Parallel
Distributed Compensation controller is proposed based on a linear copositive
Lyapunov Function so that the tumor volume and administration of the
chemotherapeutic and immunotherapeutic drugs is reduced, while the density of
the immune-competent cells is reached to an acceptable level. Thanks to the
proposed strategy, the entire control design is formulated as a Linear
Programming problem, which can be solved very efficiently. Finally, the
simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed control approach for
the cancer treatment. Keywords: Co-positive linear Lyapunov function, Cancer,
Chemotherapy, Immunotherapy, Positive system, Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy system.