Abstract
BackgroundSurface electromyographic (S-EMG) signal processing has been emerging in the past few years due to its non-invasive assessment of muscle function and structure and because of the fast growing rate of digital technology which brings about new solutions and applications. Factors such as sampling rate, quantization word length, number of channels and experiment duration can lead to a potentially large volume of data. Efficient transmission and/or storage of S-EMG signals are actually a research issue. That is the aim of this work.MethodsThis paper presents an algorithm for the data compression of surface electromyographic (S-EMG) signals recorded during isometric contractions protocol and during dynamic experimental protocols such as the cycling activity. The proposed algorithm is based on discrete wavelet transform to proceed spectral decomposition and de-correlation, on a dynamic bit allocation procedure to code the wavelets transformed coefficients, and on an entropy coding to minimize the remaining redundancy and to pack all data. The bit allocation scheme is based on mathematical decreasing spectral shape models, which indicates a shorter digital word length to code high frequency wavelets transformed coefficients. Four bit allocation spectral shape methods were implemented and compared: decreasing exponential spectral shape, decreasing linear spectral shape, decreasing square-root spectral shape and rotated hyperbolic tangent spectral shape.ResultsThe proposed method is demonstrated and evaluated for an isometric protocol and for a dynamic protocol using a real S-EMG signal data bank. Objective performance evaluations metrics are presented. In addition, comparisons with other encoders proposed in scientific literature are shown.ConclusionsThe decreasing bit allocation shape applied to the quantized wavelet coefficients combined with arithmetic coding results is an efficient procedure. The performance comparisons of the proposed S-EMG data compression algorithm with the established techniques found in scientific literature have shown promising results.
Highlights
Surface electromyographic (S-EMG) signal processing has been emerging in the past few years due to its non-invasive assessment of muscle function and structure and because of the fast growing rate of digital technology which brings about new solutions and applications
For 70%, 75% and 95% compression factor (CF) the results reported by Filho et al [15] have the lowest percent residual difference (PRD) values. 80% and 85% CF Berger et al.–improved [14] had a performance slightly superior to other techniques and for 90% CF the compression technique presented in this paper using the rotated hyperbolic tangent bit allocation shape (RHT) spectral shape model had the lowest PRD value
For 70% and 75% CF the results reported by Berger et al [13] have the lowest PRD values
Summary
Surface electromyographic (S-EMG) signal processing has been emerging in the past few years due to its non-invasive assessment of muscle function and structure and because of the fast growing rate of digital technology which brings about new solutions and applications. Factors such as sampling rate, quantization word length, number of channels and experiment duration can lead to a potentially large volume of data. Constructing an S-EMG signal data bank is important in that it makes it possible to develop research aimed at understanding physiological processes, establishing new objective parameters for analysis (for example, muscle fatigue indicators) and proposing new protocols for training in order to achieve the level of quality desired in a shorter time and without causing injuries to athletes. Coding with fewer bits for representing the S-EMG signal waveforms, while avoiding any significant degradation to the original information, constitutes the goal of this work
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