Inclined ergometer to enhance FES-assisted indoor rowing exercise performance

Improving the FES-assisted indoor rowing exercise (FES-rowing) performance enables the spinal cord injury (SCI) people to perform hybrid FES-exercise in a higher level of intensity. High level of exercise volume and intensity can play a big role in prevention of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and obesity which is a significant threat to the health of people with chronic SCI. FES-rowing can be enhanced to achieved the high level exercise through the arrangement of the rowing ergometer. In this paper, the performance of FES-rowing using an adjustable inclined rowing ergometer is investigated. Two different methods to enhance the FES-rowing performance using inclined ergometer are implemented. A model of the adjustable inclined ergometer and humanoid are developed using the Visual Nastran (vN4D) software environment and validated by the experimental work. Fuzzy logic control is implemented to control the knee and elbow trajectories for smooth rowing manoeuvre. The generated level of electrical stimulations for activation of quadriceps and hamstrings muscles are recorded and analysed. The FES-rowing efficiency for both methods have been defined and illustrated. The results show the inclined ergometer with upper body effort is the best performance in enhancing the FES-rowing