Dynamic Simulation of Indoor Rowing Exercise for Paraplegics

This paper presents the development of an FES-assisted indoor rowing exercise model designed for persons with spinal cord injury (SCI). A modified indoor rowing machine and humanoid are modelled using the Visual Nastran dynamic simulation software. The humanoid model is designed based on anthropometric data. The knee and elbow trajectories are obtained for both normal rowing sequence and rowing sequence with voluntary upper body effort. The model developed is evaluated via the torque required at the knee joint and elbow joint throughout the rowing cycle. The model required an adequate amount of torque in order to produce a smooth rowing manoeuvre. The performance of the model developed indicates that the model can be used for future development of FES-assisted indoor rowing exercise.