Stimulator for real time control of paralyzed muscles during functional electrical stimulation

A multichannel, flexible, versatile electrical stimulator is important in Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) systems. The stimulator introduced in this paper is designed and used in our laboratory-based functional neuromuscular stimulation system for the restoration of the upper or lower extremity movement of paralyzed patients. It can generate 16 independent channel complex, yet useful current pulse profiles. It is routinely used to produce rectangular, bi-phasic pulse shapes having pulsewidths in the range of 5 μs to 1000 μs with a resolution of 1 μs. The pulse amplitudes can be modulated from -100 to +100 mA with a maximum resolution of 0.4 mA. The experimental applications prove that the stimulator has very good performance and is very easy to use