A Wiener Model Based Closed Loop FES for Positional Control During Wrist Flexion

Abstract

Functional electrical stimulation is an assistive technique used to produce functional movements in patients suffering from neurological impairments. However, existing open-loop clinical FES systems are not adequately equipped to compensate for the nonlinear, time-varying behaviour of the muscles. On the other hand, closed-loop FES systems can compensate for the aforementioned effects by regulating the stimulation to induce desired contractions. Therefore, this work aims to present an approach to implement a closed-loop FES system to enable angular positional control during wrist flexion. First, a Wiener model describing the response of the wrist flexor to pulse width modulated stimulation was identified for two healthy volunteers. Second, a nonlinear PID controller (subject-specific) was designed based on the identified models to enable angular positional control during wrist flexion. Subsequently, the controller was implemented in real-time and was tested against two reference angles on healthy volunteers. This study shows promise that the presented closed-loop FES approach can be implemented to control the angular position during wrist flexion or a novelty of the work when compared with the existing work.