Control Techniques for Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation: A Brief Survey

Patients with hemiplegia (partial or total paralysis of one side of the body), usually caused by a stroke, have a slow and gradual recovery performed by physiotherapy and electrical stimulation. This paper presents a brief history of the progress of functional electrical stimulation for the control of human arm with hemiplegia.The goal of this article is to decrease the angular error of the bending (flexing) movement by using several control techniques, such as fuzzy controllers, neurofuzzy, adaptive, Extremum Seeking Control (ESC), the recent discoveries in nonlinear modeling of the muscular system, as well as two reviews of a neural controller and other advances in therapy for Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES).