Design of a hybrid powered upper limb orthosis

Abstract

The loss of the grasping function in cervical spinal cord injured patients leads to life long dependency on helping persons. At the current state neuroprostheses using Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) require unrestricted active shoulder and elbow movements which are often not present in high cervical lesioned patients. Therefore this project aims at the development of a non invasive, modular FES-hybrid orthosis for the upper extremity, which combines the advantages of orthotics in mechanically stabilising joints together with the possibilities of FES for actively eliciting muscle contractions. A lightweight, portable system is achieved by the use of miniaturized flexible fluidic actuators that support the movements and that ensure safety by inherent compliance. Thus the system can not only be used for functional restoration but also for training. The integration of novel user interfaces based on residual muscle activities and detection of movement intentions by real-time data mining methods will enable the user to independently control the system in a natural way. © 2009 Springer-Verlag.