Preliminary Study on Muscle Force Estimation using Musculoskeletal Model for Upper Limb Rehabilitation with Assistive Device for Home Setting

Post-stroke rehabilitation using assistive device has the potential to cover the need for improvement of the upper limb functionality. Moreover, using a biomechanical model to estimate the muscle activity during the rehabilitation training could improve the training module as well as help understand the target muscle during the motion of body part while using the assistive device. In this study, the author has focused on using a musculoskeletal model of the right arm to estimate the individual muscle force by simulating the movement of the right arm while using the developed assistive device. A developed upper limb assistive device has been investigated for its potential as a rehabilitation device for persons with physical disability of upper limb motion. The muscle force estimation is based on an inverse dynamic method, improved with additional constraints of the joints in order to obtain the muscle's activity from motion capture data. The acquired muscle force data could be used to improve the arm assistive device in rehabilitation training for home setting purpose.