A Wearable, High-Resolution, and Wireless System for Multichannel Surface Electromyography Detection

Abstract

In this paper, a wearable, wireless system is proposed for the multichannel detection of surface electromyography (sEMG) signals. As sEMG signals have great value in clinical diagnosis and engineering research, the system is designed to obtain reliable and real-time sEMG signals. Because raw sEMG signals are faint and susceptible, the designed system provides several solutions to solve this problem. The multichannel method allows the system to detect muscle activities from 8 different positions simultaneously. To improve flexibility in practical applications, the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology is equipped to realize wireless data transmission over a short-distance (12 m). Besides, for the purpose of reducing interferences within the system, hardware and software filters are both designed to improve the accuracy of the measurement system. Advantages of the overall design include ease of wearing, high-resolution, and high reliability. With a sample rate of 2 kHz and a resolution of 24 bits, the acquisition unit was accomplished in a small 3D print shell (3.5 cm ×3.5 cm ×1.8 cm). The paper includes several sEMG signal detection experiments on healthy volunteers using the system and acquired data were confirmed to be reliable and practicable. Characteristics of the system were calibrated and the testing results have proved its good performance in sEMG signal detection.