Adaptive Control of Cyclic Movements in a Multi-segment System

Partial body weight support (PBWS) during locomotion on a treadmill has been used to improve gait for persons with incomplete spinal cord injury (SCI). Combined therapy that uses functional neuromuscular stimulation (FNS) to assist in generating locomotor movements may lead to improvements in PBWS locomotor training. The effectiveness of this combined approach may strongly depend on the ability of the FNS system to control movements accurately and repeatably. In previous work, we developed the Pattern Generator/Patter Shaper (PG/PS) controller and demonstrated that it effectively controlled cyclic singlejoint movements. The objective of this study was to evaluate the ability of the PG/PS controller to control cyclic stepping-like movements in a multi-segment system. In these studies, the PG/PS control system automatically customized stimulation patterns to generate the desired cyclic movement, thus suggesting that it may be a useful component of a system for FNSassisted locomotor therapy in people with incomplete SC