A Multi-channel EMG-Driven FES Solution for Stroke Rehabilitation

Abstract

Functional electrical stimulation (FES) has been applied to stroke rehabilitation for many years. However, users are usually involved in open-loop fixed cycle FES systems in clinical, which is easy to cause muscle fatigue and reduce rehabilitation efficacy. This paper proposes a multi-surface EMG-driven FES integration solution for enhancing upper-limb stroke rehabilitation. This wireless portable system consists of sEMG data acquisition module and FES module, the former is used to capture sEMG signals, the latter of multi-channel FES output can be driven by the sEMG. Preliminary experiments proved that the system has outperformed existing similar systems and that sEMG can be effectively employed to achieve different FES intensity, demonstrating the potential for active stroke rehabilitation.