Functional electrical therapy systems: neuroprostheses for life-like reach and grasp

A programmable multi-channel neuroprosthesis for functional electrical therapy was developed. This research follows the neurorehabilitation studies indicating that the provision of life-like reaching and grasping in stroke subjects is essential for their faster and more effective recovery. The designed 16-channel neuroprosthesis delivers charge-balanced impulses, and controls the pulse width, frequency and stimulus intensity on each channel independently. The main novelty is a controller that supports sensory driven, rule-based control. The rules use sensory information and mappings that can be determined by machine learning. The controller supports up to eight analog sensors, six digital sensors, five timers, and comprises a flash memory for handling time series. An interface for downloading programs from a PC computer was realized via a serial communication channel by means of an infrared link.