Development of a FES Knee Bending and Stretching Trike System with RISE-based Control and Its Experimental Verification

The aim of functional electrical stimulation (FES) is restoring a disabled patient’s upper motor neuron by directly applying electrical currents to the paralyzed muscles. This paper considers a FES alternate knee bending and stretching trike system with RISE-based control for rehabilitation. The alternate knee bending and stretching mechanism and a rider with two muscle groups (Quadriceps, Hamstrings) are modeled as an Euler Lagrange system based on knee bending and stretching force direction. A chain and pulley gear mechanism and a linear motion conversion mechanism are loaded on a recumbent trike to keep disabled patient’s motivation for rehabilitation and to use as transportation. The chain and pulley gear mechanism achieves alternate knee bending and stretching motion, and the linear motion conversion mechanism achieves converting linear motion to rotary motion. Experimental results in healthy participants are shown to confirm the validity of the proposed system and the potential of use as transportation. © 2020 The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.