DIY Artificial PAncreas Systems - out in the wild and coming to a Type 1 Diabetic near you

In the last eighteen months, the #wearenotwaiting movement has grasped the lack of technology solutions to Type 1 Diabetes with both hands, done what commercial organisations have failed to do, and built ourselves "Artificial Pancreas" systems, or what are better described as "Hybrid Closed Loop" systems.

These systems have liability limited to the person who builds them, but are proving very effective at glucose control. These system react to blood glucose levels provided by continuous glucose monitoring and decide how much insulin to deliver as a result. They have features built in that allow the algorithm to undertake such functions as recognising when a meal has been eaten and adjust insulin accordingly, or identify that insulin sensitivity has got worse and update calculations with the new values.

The systems that are currently in use by members of the public are briefly listed below:

OpenAPS, built by Ben West, Dana Lewis and Scott Leibrand, supports multiple legacy Medtronic Pumps and can be used with a number of different CGM systems. It has detailed set up instructions and supports both original carelink USB sticks for communicating with the pump, as well as additional options that allow better range and reliability. The home of OpenAPS can be found at: https://openaps.org/ where you can find a vast array of information that relates to the platform.

Follow the “Getting started” link to take you into the documentation, or follow this link: https://openaps.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html

 

Loop - an implementation of Loopkit, a framework created by Nate Racklyeft, that runs on an iPhone. It was built with the aim of reducing the amount to carry for APS implementations and thanks to Nate and Pete Schwamb’s ingenuity, built as a framework for others to implement their own algorithms. It uses the RileyLink hardware to communicate between BLE from the iPhone to the RF frequencies the Medtronic pumps use.

AndroidAPS - an implementation of the oref0 algorithm from OpenAPS in a modular platform on Android. It can be found at https://github.com/MilosKozak/AndroidAPS and is similar in form to HAPP, using the same xDrip based GUI. All systems have the following components in common: CGM (usually Dexcom) Older Medtronic Pumps (5xx or 7xx) up to Firmware version 2.4A  An additional box for communication or the algorithm If you want to find out more about what the options are, visit: http://www.diabettech.com/looping-a-guide/