Nonlinear identification method corresponding to muscle property variation in FES - Experiments in paraplegic patients

A model-based Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) would be very helpful for the adaptive movement synthesis of spinal-cord-injured patients. The nonlinearity of the neuromuscular system can be captured through modeling and identification process. However, there are still critical limitations in FES: rapid muscle fatigue and time-varying property. In actual FES, in order to minimize the fatigue, the intermittent stimulation is adopted. In this case, fatigue and recovery occur in sequence. Thus, the time-varying muscle response is really difficult to be predicted for FES force control. In this paper, we propose an identification method to identify unknown internal states and the maximal force parameter which are inside the nonlinear differential equation. Among the internal parameters of muscle model, maximal force Fm should be mainly changed corresponding to the current muscle condition. Muscle fatigue or recovery itself is difficult to be modeled and predicted, however observing the input-output information from the muscle, the adaptive estimation will be achieved to correspond to the varying muscle response effected by a fatigue or unknown metabolic factor of human system. This identification method itself can be expected to be applied for general use in rehabilitation robotics.