Apparatus for generating sensations of movement and for physical rehabilitation

An apparatus for generating bioelectric signals, providing a living being with sensations corresponding to the performance of a given movement of a part of his or her body even if this movement is not performed, comprising:

• a table of elementary excitation signals;
• a control unit including a sequencer;
• and
• vibrators carried by a coupling support maintaining each of them in a predetermined position relative to body elements of the body part;
• in which, for each given movement, each vibrator can receive an elementary excitation signal in order to stimulate mechanically body elements of the body part to cause bioelectric signals to be issued, all elementary excitation signals of the various vibrators taken together constituting a macro-pattern, these elementary signals being chosen to form a specific macro-pattern characteristic of the movement under consideration, this macro-pattern read by the sequencer supplying said vibrators with the elementary excitation signals capable of causing the creation bioelectric signals in the living being causing him or her to perceive the sensations of performance of said movement.

A method for making out of macro-patterns for exciting apparatus adapted to allow a living being to perceive sensations of virtual movements of a part of his or her body, comprising a control unit comprising a table held in memory containing a first plurality of elementary excitation signals being elements making up a second plurality of macro-patterns each consisting of a third specific plurality of said elementary signals, the control unit including a sequencer adapted to read the macro-patterns and issue a said second plurality of corresponding command excitations of a said third specific plurality of vibrators selected, on each occasion, from among a said first plurality of vibrators carried by a coupling support in respective predetermined areas of the part of the body, excitation of said third specific plurality of vibrators by said second plurality of commands being adapted to mechanically stimulate body elements of the body part of the living inducing the creation of bioelectric signals in the living being causing him or her to perceive sensations of a given virtual movement of that particular body part, in which method tests are performed on at least one subject:

• by applying stimuli in the form of vibrations resulting from a first macro-pattern determined in advance, for a body part under consideration, to cause the subject to perceive the sensations of a determined movement;
• the subject indicating his or her perception of the virtual movement thus evoked by the stimuli;
• by successive iterations, with change of the parameters of the first macro-pattern, determining the final values of said parameters corresponding to a satisfactory emulation of the real movement simulated;
• and
• having repeated the previous cycle of steps a desired number of times to obtain the desired number of macro-patterns, the parameters for these are stored in the said table.

A method for making out of artificial macro-patterns for excitation of adapted to allow a living being to perceive sensations of virtual movements of a part of his or her body, comprising a control unit comprising a table held in memory containing a first plurality of elementary excitation signals being elements making up a second plurality of macro-patterns each consisting of a third specific plurality of said elementary signals, the control unit including a sequencer adapted to read the macro-patterns and issue a said second plurality of corresponding command excitations of a said third specific plurality of vibrators selected, on each occasion, from among a said first plurality of vibrators carried by a coupling support in respective predetermined areas of the part of the body, excitation of said third specific plurality of vibrators by said second plurality of commands being adapted to mechanically stimulate body elements of the body part of the living inducing the creation of bioelectric signals in the living being causing him or her to perceive sensations of a given virtual movement of that particular body part, comprising the following steps:

• determining instantaneous velocity vectors to follow a given path, for points on this path spaced in time;
• identifying the muscles that would be involved if a living being performed the movement corresponding to the said path;
• identifying directions of maximum sensitivity of these muscles;
• and
• establishing macro-patterns by characterizing elementary signals making up the macro-patterns from an analysis of velocity vectors relative to the directions of maximum sensitivity.