Force Tracking Control of Functional Electrical Stimulation via Hybrid Active Disturbance Rejection Control

Stroke is a worldwide disease with a high incidence rate. After surviving a stroke, most patients are left with impaired upper or lower limb. Muscle force training is vital for stroke patients to recover limb function and improve their quality of life. This paper proposes a force tracking control method for upper limb based on functional electrical stimulation (FES), which is a promising rehabilitation approach. A modified Hammerstein model is proposed to describe the nonlinear dynamics of biceps brachii, which consists of a nonlinear mapping function, linear dynamics and time delay component to represent the biochemical process of muscle contraction. A quick model identification method is presented based on the least square algorithm. To deal with the variation of muscle dynamics, a hybrid active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) is proposed to estimate and compensate for the model uncertainty and unmeasured disturbances. The parameter tuning process is given. In the end, the performance of the proposed methods is verified via simulations and experiments. Compared with the Proportional integral derivative controller (PID) method, the proposed methods could suppress the model uncertainty and improve the tracking precision.