Functional Electrical Stimulation for Equilibrium-Point Control of Human Ankle Movement: Frequency Domain System Identification of Human Ankle Dynamics

This paper presents a novel method for creating an electrical stimulation pattern to control the equilibrium-point (EP) of human ankle movement. Focusing on the synergetic activation of agonist–antagonist (AA) muscles, the proposed method employs the ES-AA ratio (the ratio of the electrical stimulation levels for AA muscles) and the ES-AA sum (the sum of the electrical stimulation levels for AA muscles), which are based on the AA ratio (the ratio of the electromyography (EMG) voltage levels for AA muscles) and the AA sum (the sum of the EMG voltage levels for AA muscles) used in human movement analysis [1, 2]. The ES-AA ratio is related to the EP of the joint whereas the ES-AA sum is associated with mechanical stiffness of the joint. Using the AA concepts, we estimated the transfer function between the input ES-AA ratio (for the tibialis anterior (TA ) and gastrocnemius (GC)) and the force output of the endpoint in the ankle joint in an isometric environment by investigating the frequency characteristics, and finally found that the ankle-joint system was a second-order system with dead time in terms of the ES-AA ratio and foot force.