Potentials of constrained sliding mode control as an intervention guide to manage COVID19 spread

Abstract

This work evaluates the potential of using sliding mode reference conditioning (SMRC) techniques as a guide for non-pharmaceutical interventions and population confinement to control the COVID-19 pandemic. SMRC technique allows robustly delimiting a given variable in dynamical systems. In particular, for the epidemiological problem addressed here, it can be used to compute day by day the contact rate reduction requirement in order to limit the intense care units occupancy to a given threshold. What is more, it could impose a given approaching rate to the health care system limits. Simulations are performed using the well-known SEIR model fitted to the Argentinian case to demonstrate what this control strategy suggests, while the effect of realistic period transitions between different confinement levels are also considered.