An interactive tool for the analysis of muscular recruitment during walking task

Abstract

The present work proposes an interactive software tool for surface electromyography signal processing and analysis, focused on the assessment of muscular activations during walking and easy-to-use also for users without signal treatment knowledge. The tool is based on two logical steps: first, an automatic detection of muscle activations is provided; then, the user can tune the value of each processing parameter, with a real-time visual feedback. A stride-to-stride evaluation of muscular recruitment and a co-contraction recognition are available, together with the computation of an average myoelectric activation pattern. The tunable signal processing tailors the analysis to any considered application, allowing to extract information from low-quality signals. A muscle activity characterisation from the single stride to the whole walking trial is also provided. Beyond gait analysis and muscles activation timing identification, this tool could be valuable also in an educational scenario, considering the interactive characteristics of the graphical user interface.