Live Demonstration: Low Power System for Event-Driven Control of Functional Electrical Stimulation

The demonstration presents a surface ElectroMyoGraphy (sEMG) low power wireless system used to control Functional Electrical Stimulation for rehabilitative neuro-muscular applications. An event-driven technique is applied to the bio-signal, minimising power consumption, complexity, and transmitted data. The acquisition board transmits four channels sEMG event data, through a Bluetooth Low Energy wireless module, to a workstation where they are processed in order to control the stimulation pattern of a commercially available functional stimulator. We will show system functionality and efficiency during the execution of some basic functional movements.

I. Overview

Nowadays, the use of low energy electrical pulses to promote muscle contraction, an active therapy known as Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES), is largely employed to prevent and reduce muscle disorders. Usually, the stimulation pattern is defined processing parameters (well known in literature) extracted from the voluntary surface ElectroMyoGraphy (sEMG) signal, with the aim of making the contraction the more physiological as possible [1].