Robust Discrimination of Flexion and Extension Phases for Mobile Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) Induced Cycling in Paraplegics

A robust method for flexion and extension phase discrimination has been developed for mobile Functional electrical stimulation (FES) induced cycling by using a joint angle based stimulation pattern instead of a crank angle-based method. As a side product the crank angle and cadence can be reliably estimated. This can be used to compare the joint angle based stimulation pattern against encoder based methods or to control the smoothness of inter-cycle cadence. The proposed method was tested with a developed simulation model while applying torques at the crank to verify the robustness for mobile cycling. Finally we present the RehaBike® for the upcoming Cybathlon® competition where all methods will be integrated.