Simulation of the assistance of passive knee orthoses in FES cycling

Although advances in technology promoted new physiotherapy approaches, there is still an urge for equipment and techniques to improve the quality of patients lives with motor disabilities. Functional electrical stimulation cycling (FES cycling) is an example of this type of technology, in which the control of stimulation parameters enables a spinal cord injured person to ride a bicycle. In this work, we aim to investigate the use of passive knee orthoses for FES cycling assistance. Hence, we compared the cycling cadence and quadriceps excitation using an FES cycling simulation platform for different spring torques and ranges. In this paper, we obtained spring parameters that increased cycling cadence by 10.60% while decreasing by 7.33% the quadriceps activity, which indicates that this type of passive orthosis may diminish fatigue caused by FES.