Collaborative Research: Assistive Robotics and Functional Electrical Stimulation - A Synergistic Combination to Reanimate Paralyzed Arms

肩部以下瘫痪的人依靠24小时护理来完成基本的日常活动。恢复手臂和手的功能将大大提高他们的独立性。辅助机器人和功能性电刺激可以潜在地恢复手臂和手的功能，但它们都有明显的缺点。该项目的目标是利用功能性电刺激和机器人外骨骼开发一种协作控制策略，用于高度颈脊髓损伤患者的功能性肘关节和手腕运动。该项目的成果将有助于将功能性电刺激和上肢机器人技术从实验室辅助技术转变为可穿戴设备，用于全臂瘫痪患者的日常工作。功能性电刺激（FES）和辅助机器人的互补优势可能使高度四肢瘫痪的人能够独立进食和梳理自己。FES利用人体自身的肌肉提供免费动力，但由于某些肌肉的永久性失神经支配，无法同时充分控制所有关节。辅助机器人可以提供额外的动力和控制，但可能是刚性的，笨重的和沉重的。该项目的目标是开发一种协作控制策略，使用混合FES+刚性支撑机器人演示高度四肢瘫痪患者的功能性肘关节和手腕运动。通过最大限度地利用FES激活的肌肉，所提出的混合策略将减少对机器人功率和尺寸的需求，为FES与软可穿戴机器人的使用铺平道路。本项目将使用刚性机器人作为开发协同控制策略的试验台，探索整个设计空间，为未来开发与FES相结合的柔性可穿戴外装提供空间。FES+机器人辅助的肌肉感应扭矩将在肘部和腕部运动时实时测量。这些信息将被输入到一个协调的FES+机器人控制方案中，该方案旨在减少机器人的工作量，同时保持跟踪精度。控制方案的性能和鲁棒性将根据机器人在自喂任务中的能力变化进行基准测试。结果将是一个模型，将机器人的能力映射到任务完成的成功，用于设计未来可穿戴的混合fes机器人系统，用于上肢运动恢复。这些进展将为指挥和控制混合神经假体开辟新的研究视野，否则无法实现。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

People who are paralyzed from the shoulders down rely on 24-hour care to complete basic daily activities. Restoring arm and hand function would greatly increase their independence. Assistive robotics and functional electrical stimulation can potentially restore arm and hand function, but each has significant drawbacks. The objective of this project is to develop a cooperative control strategy for functional elbow and wrist movements in people with high cervical spinal cord injuries using functional electrical stimulation and a robotic exoskeleton. The results of the project will help move functional electrical stimulation and upper limb robotics from laboratory assistive technologies to wearable devices used for everyday tasks by people with full-arm paralysis. The complementary strengths of functional electrical stimulation (FES) and assistive robotics can potentially enable people with high tetraplegia to independently feed and groom themselves. FES provides free power using a person’s own muscles but cannot sufficiently control all joints simultaneously due to permanent denervation of some muscles. Assistive robots can provide additional power and control, but can be rigid, bulky, and heavy. This project's objective is to develop a cooperative control strategy that demonstrates functional elbow and wrist movements in people with high tetraplegia using a hybrid FES+rigid support robot. By maximizing the utility of muscles activated by FES, the proposed hybrid strategy will reduce the need for robot power and size, paving the way for using FES with soft wearable robotics. This project will use a rigid robot as the testbed for developing cooperative control strategies, allowing for exploration of the entire design space for future development of soft wearable exosuits coupled with FES. FES+robot assisted muscle-induced torques will be measured in real time during elbow and wrist movements. This information will feed into a coordinated FES+robot control scheme that aims to decrease robot work while maintaining tracking accuracy. Performance and robustness of the control scheme will be benchmarked for varying robot capabilities during a self-feeding task. The outcome will be a model, mapping robot capabilities to task completion success, to be used to design future wearable hybrid FES-robotic systems for upper limb movement restoration. These advances will open up new research horizons in commanding and controlling hybrid neuroprostheses that could not otherwise be achieved.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.