A New Mathematical Force Model that Predicts the Force-pulse Amplitude Relationship of Human Skeletal Muscle.

ABSTRACT

Current functional electrical stimulation (FES) systems vary the stimulation intensity to control the muscle force in order to produce precise functional movements. However, mathematical model that predicts the intensity effect on the muscle force is required for model-based controller design. The most previous force model designed by Ding et al was validated only for a standardized stimulation pulse amplitude (intensity). Thus, the purpose of this study was to adapt the Ding et al model to be able to predict the force-pulse amplitude relationship. The experimental results tested on quadriceps femoris muscles of healthy subjects (N=5) show that our adapted model accurately predicts the force response for trains of a wide range of stimulation intensities (30-100 mA). The accurate predictions indicate that our adapted model could be used for designing model-based control strategies to control the muscle force through FES.