Combined Electromyography(EMG)-driven robotic system with Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) for rehabilitation

Robot and Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) techniques have been widely used in upper limb rehabilitation training. In this work, we developed a hybrid interactive robotic system with FES for hand training. The preliminary system evaluation was achieved via a finger tracking task. The results showed that 1) the hybrid system could be successfully driven by EMG with interactive control algorithms; 2) the combined system could improve the tracking performance with adequate assistance combination from robot part and FES part. This combined system may have the potential to be used for hand rehabilitation.