Design and study of a multi-channel electrical musclestimulation toolkit for human augmentation

Author

Kono, Michinari and Ishiguro, Yoshio and Miyaki, Takashi and Rekimoto, Jun

Abstract

Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS) has attracted many users and researchers to apply the technique for various usages. However, EMS products for research purpose are limited and open source hardware still has limitations. We present a multi-channel EMS toolkit for researchers and designers to develop their original ideas. The toolkit was designed to have isolated multiple channels to be manipulated simultaneously, which allows simultaneous control of multiple body parts and multiple users. We organized a workshop with a theme of human augmentation, where EMS was not compelled to use. As a result, several groups found interest in using EMS for their development, and participants successfully used our toolkit for their presentation. We found that multi-channel EMS has a significant demand for human augmentation purposes.