ILC for FES-based stroke rehabilitation of hand and wrist

Functional electrical stimulation (FES) has been shown to be an effective technique for stroke rehabilitation, but when applied to support wrist and hand movement, current controllers in clinical use are almost exclusively open-loop which degrades their accuracy and hence therapeutic potential. As one of the few model-based control approaches to be used in clinical trials for the upper limb, iterative learning control (ILC) has clear potential in this area. This paper develops a clinically-relevant model of the hand and wrist incorporating stimulated muscles to assist the implementation of FES based rehabilitation system and establishes the ability of ILC to provide precision motion control over repeated attempts at a task. Practical considerations are discussed relating to the application of the control algorithms developed within stroke rehabilitation.