Design and Implementation of a Wearable Body Area Sensor Network for Distributed FES System

A wearable body area sensor network(WBASN) was designed and implemented to monitor movement information of stroke patients in real time. The sensor system was combined with a previously developed distributed functional electrical stimulation(d FES) system, which is a promising technology for motor rehabilitation of stroke patients. Movement information could be useful in outcome assessment of rehabilitation, or for closed-loop adaptive stimulation during rehabilitation. In addition,a short-latency, low-power communication protocol was developed to meet the clinical requirements of energy efficiency and high rate of data feed-through. The prototype of the WBASN was tested in preliminary human experiments. Experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed wearable body area sensor network in monitoring arm movements on healthy subjects.