Functional electrical stimulation driver for a werable-based bio-stimulation system

Electrical stimulation is widely used in clinical applications as an auxiliary treatment method for muscle injuries or illnesses provoked by muscle atrophy. In most cases, the regular stimulation systems do not provide the proper flexibility to fit the patient’s needs or do not provide the freedom of movement due to their size. This paper presents an electrical stimulation driver based on a MOSFET-Transformer topology controlled by a microcontroller. The circuit is integrated into a wearable bio-stimulation system that uses dry electrodes and is controlled by a mobile application. The main system requirements are the stimulation flexibility as well as the driver size. The circuit must be able to generate stimulation pulses according to the patient necessity and be small enough to fit a piece of wearable equipment. The pulses are generated by a microcontroller, controlled by a mobile application, the application sets the pulse parameters such as width, amplitude, and frequency, and the driver performs the signal conditioning, amplifies, and generates the output waveform
This work was supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalization (COMPETE 2020), under Portugal 2020 in the framework of the NanoStim - Nanomaterials for wearable-based integrated biostimulation (POCI-01-0247-FEDER-045908) project.

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