Luzio de Melo Paulo, da Silva Miguel Tavares, Martins Jorge, Newman Dava
IDMEC, Instituto Superior Técnico, Mechanical Engineering, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal.
Aero-Astro Department, Man Vehicle Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Artif Organs. 2015 May;39(5):E56-66. doi: 10.1111/aor.12400. Epub 2015 Apr 28.
Functional electrical stimulation (FES) has been used over the last decades as a method to rehabilitate lost motor functions of individuals with spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis, and post-stroke hemiparesis. Within this field, researchers in need of developing FES-based control solutions for specific disabilities often have to choose between either the acquisition and integration of high-performance industry-level systems, which are rather expensive and hardly portable, or develop custom-made portable solutions, which despite their lower cost, usually require expert-level electronic skills. Here, a flexible low-cost microcontroller-based platform for rapid prototyping of FES neuroprostheses is presented, designed for reduced execution complexity, development time, and production cost. For this reason, the Arduino open-source microcontroller platform was used, together with off-the-shelf components whenever possible. The developed system enables the rapid deployment of portable FES-based gait neuroprostheses, being flexible enough to allow simple open-loop strategies but also more complex closed-loop solutions. The system is based on a modular architecture that allows the development of optimized solutions depending on the desired FES applications, even though the design and testing of the platform were focused toward drop foot correction. The flexibility of the system was demonstrated using two algorithms targeting drop foot condition within different experimental setups. Successful bench testing of the device in healthy subjects demonstrated these neuroprosthesis platform capabilities to correct drop foot.
在过去几十年中，功能性电刺激（FES）已被用作一种方法，用于恢复脊髓损伤、多发性硬化症和中风后偏瘫患者丧失的运动功能。在该领域，需要为特定残疾开发基于FES的控制解决方案的研究人员通常不得不在高性能工业级系统的采集和集成之间做出选择，这类系统相当昂贵且几乎不可携带，或者开发定制的便携式解决方案，尽管其成本较低，但通常需要专家级的电子技能。在此，提出了一种基于低成本微控制器的灵活平台，用于FES神经假体的快速原型制作，其设计目的是降低执行复杂性、开发时间和生产成本。因此，使用了Arduino开源微控制器平台，并尽可能使用现成的组件。所开发的系统能够快速部署基于FES的便携式步态神经假体，其灵活性足以允许简单的开环策略以及更复杂的闭环解决方案。该系统基于模块化架构，即使平台的设计和测试侧重于足下垂矫正，也允许根据所需的FES应用开发优化的解决方案。使用针对不同实验设置中的足下垂情况的两种算法展示了该系统的灵活性。该设备在健康受试者中成功进行的台架测试证明了这些神经假体平台具有矫正足下垂的能力。
