A Neuro-Prosthetic Device for Substituting Sensory Functions during Stance Phase of the Gait

Abstract

In this study, we present the experimental results demonstrating the functionality of our recently developed “balancing device” for walking restoration in patients with spinal cord injuries. Since we are preparing this device for testing on dogs, we program the analytical core of the device to recognize both stance and swing phases of the dog gait, the direction that the dog is falling, as well as selecting a suitable balancing strategy to prevent falling. The analytical core of the device is a commercial microcontroller, the Teensy, which is able to provide suitable stimulation commands and intensities as a voltage for delivery to the stimulation circuit and target muscles. We show the functional schematic of the device along with experimental results obtained by testing the device in a simulated robotic dog. Results show that the sensory system of the animal lost by spinal cord injury can be replaced by the sensing core of the device and the analytical core can provide appropriate stimulation control to balance the body of a dog. All test results are obtained using our robot test-bed and living animals are not involved in this study.

A Technical Review on Development of an Advanced Electromechanical System

“…Each Teensy has a different amount of EEPROM. Teensy 3.2 [3,30] for example, has 2048 bytes of EEPROM available.…”

“…Nowadays, mechatronics and electromechanical systems have applications in automated and manufacturing industries [1], medical devices [2,3] and many more. Demand for these systems, which are designed to convert electrical energy to mechanical energy, has dramatically increased.…”

An experimental investigation on shape memory polymer and metallic stents under bending and radial compression

“…It can be used as part of any implantable devices like stimulation electrodes in the body. We will investigate these applications in our future works [32,33].…”