Dynamic modeling and control of wheel-chaired elliptical stepping exercise

This paper presents the model development of Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES)-assisted wheel-chaired elliptical stepping exercise. This exercise specially designed for persons with hemiplegic or spinal cord injury (SCI). The design involves the development of humanoid, wheelchair and elliptical stepping machine models. A feedback control system is used to implement the control and coordinate the exercise movement. Knee extension of the subject is initiate to lead the elliptical stepping movement. The torque production and cadence speed of the exercise is observed at different setting of the control gain. The result obtained shows that the implementation of the exercise required an adequate amount of torque applied to produce the well coordinate knee movement for left and right knee. Integration with muscle model and implementation of more advance control system is required for further improvement to the exercise model.