Iranian Journal of Biomedical Engineering (IJBME)
نشریه علمی مهندسی پزشکی زیستی

Using Synergy to Control the Reaching Movement Neuroprosthesis: Muscle Synergy or Kinematic Synergy

Document Type : Full Research Paper

Authors

Ali Maleki 1
Ali Fallah 2

1 PhD Candidate of Bioelectric, Biomedical Engineering School, Amirkabir University of Technology

2 Assistant Professor, Bioelectric Department, Biomedical Engineering School, Amirkabir University of Technology

10.22041/ijbme.2008.13438
Abstract
Patients with spinal cord injury in C5/C6 levels are capable of controlling the voluntary movements of the shoulder joints, but some muscles involved in the movement of the elbow joint are paralyzed in these patients. By using FES as well as an appropriate stimulation of the paralyzed muscles, the patients can be assisted with their essential daily living activities. One of the major problems of using FES for reanimation of the paralyzed arm is to provide voluntary commands for FES control. Kinematic synergy and muscle synergy are two main options in this regard. In this paper, these two command sources were evaluated and compared. Furthermore, a mixed method was proposed, which improves performance. Thus, the EMG and kinematical data during a set of activities of daily living (AOL) were recorded and processed. Precise investigations were carried out in order to determine the appropriate values for high-level neural network controller parameters. Next, six different neural network controller structures were trained by the EMG and/or kinematical data. Using this method, cross correlation between the estimation and measurement for all records was obtained as 94.76% for kinematic synergy and 98.08%, for muscle synergy. In the mixed method, these values were improved to 94.82% and 98.84% respectively. Furthermore, mixed method paved the way to improve the performance of low-level controller with estimating the desired kinematics for the distal joint and desired activity for the paralyzed muscle. 

Keywords

Functional electrical stimulation
Reaching movement
Kinematic synergy
Muscle synergy
Activities of daily living

Subjects

Iranian Journal of Biomedical Engineering (IJBME)
Volume 2, Issue 2 - Serial Number 2
Spring 2008
Pages 131-140

  • Receive Date 26 June 2015

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