sEMG Sensors Research Articles

Separability of Input Features and the Resulting Accuracy in Classifying Target Poses for Active Transhumeral Prosthetic Interfaces.

In active prostheses, it is desired to achieve target poses for a given family of tasks, for example, in the task of forward reaching using a transhumeral prosthesis with coordinated joint movements. To do so, it is necessary to distinguish these target poses accurately using the input features (e.g. kinematic and sEMG) obtained from the human users. However, the input features have conventionally been selected through human observations and influenced heavily by the availability of sensors in this context, which may not always yield the most relevant information to differentiate the target poses in the given task. In order to better select from a pool of available input features, those most appropriate for a given set of target poses, a measure that correlates well with the resulting classification accuracy is required so that it can inform the interface design process. In this paper, a scatter-matrix based class separability measure is adopted to quantitatively evaluate the separability of the target poses from their corresponding input features. A human experiment was performed on ten able-bodied subjects. Subjects were asked to perform forward-reaching movements with their arms on nine target poses in a virtual reality (VR) platform and the corresponding kinematic information of their arm movement and muscle activities were recorded. The accuracy of the prosthetic interface in determining the intended target poses of the human user during forward reaching is evaluated for different combinations of input features, selected from the kinematic and sEMG sensors worn by the users. The results demonstrate that employing input features that yield a high separability measure between target poses results in a high accuracy in identifying the intended target poses in the execution of the task.

A Muscle Fatigue Classification Model Based on LSTM and Improved Wavelet Packet Threshold.

Previous studies have used the anaerobic threshold (AT) to non-invasively predict muscle fatigue. This study proposes a novel method for the automatic classification of muscle fatigue based on surface electromyography (sEMG). The sEMG data were acquired from 20 participants during an incremental test on a cycle ergometer using sEMG sensors placed on the vastus rectus femoris (RF), vastus lateralis (VL), vastus medialis (VM), and gastrocnemius (GA) muscles of the left leg. The ventilation volume (VE), oxygen uptake (VO2), and carbon dioxide production (VCO2) data of each participant were collected during the test. Then, we extracted the time-domain and frequency-domain features of the sEMG signal denoised by the improved wavelet packet threshold denoising algorithm. In this study, we propose a new muscle fatigue recognition model based on the long short-term memory (LSTM) network. The LSTM network was trained to classify muscle fatigue using sEMG signal features. The results showed that the improved wavelet packet threshold function has better performance in denoising sEMG signals than hard threshold and soft threshold functions. The classification performance of the muscle fatigue recognition model proposed in this paper is better than that of CNN (convolutional neural network), SVM (support vector machine), and the classification models proposed by other scholars. The best performance of the LSTM network was achieved with 70% training, 10% validation, and 20% testing rates. Generally, the proposed model can be used to monitor muscle fatigue.

Ankle foot motion recognition based on wireless wearable sEMG and acceleration sensors for smart AFO

Ankle joint is one of the important anatomical structures of the human body, smart ankle-foot orthosis(AFO) can assist human walking and improve the ankle motion for patients. This study focused on ankle foot movements recognition based on data fusion via sEMG and acceleration sensors. A wireless signal acquisition system (WAS) was designed specifically, forming a platform to demonstrate and record individual sEMG and acceleration data simultaneously. In the experimental tests, three channel sEMG signals from Tibialis Anterior (TA), Gastrocnemius (GM) and Soleus (SO), as well as three-axis acceleration data of the ankle joints, were collected when subjects performed four kinds of typical motions including dorsiflexion, plantar flexion, eversion and inversion. A total of 21,600 frames of sEMG /acceleration action data were constructed and then different kinds of classification algorithms were studied to classify the motions by the principal component analysis (PCA) based data fusion signal features. Results showed that the classification accuracy of bi-directional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) algorithm performed the best compared with traditional networks such as support vector machine(SVM), artificial neural network (ANN) and reached 99.8 %. These results demonstrated the potential application for accurate ankle foot intent identification by sEMG and acceleration sensors, which provided the basis for further implementation of subsequent smart AFO manipulation.

Real time motion intention recognition method with limited number of surface electromyography sensors for A 7-DOF hand/wrist rehabilitation exoskeleton

The functions of human hand are rich, and the motor dysfunction of hand of chronic stroke patients can be alleviated to some extent through active rehabilitation training. Hand rehabilitation exoskeleton can assist patients to do active rehabilitation training. However, how to realize more motion with less surface electromyogrphy (sEMG) sensors, and how to realize the real-time motion intention recognition are two important issues. This paper introduces real-time motion intention recognition method with limited number of sEMG sensors for a 7-DOF wearable hand/wrist rehabilitation exoskeleton to realize the real-time motion intention recognition and rehabilitation training. Root mean square (RMS) and Bens Spiker Algorithm (BSA) features of three-channel sEMG signals are extracted, and they are mapped to seven different intention movements by combining the Bagging method. The finger structure part of the exoskeleton is composed of a rotary-spatial-spatial-rotary (RSSR) mechanism and a double-parallelogram mechanism, which makes the projection center of exoskeleton coincide with the rotation center of the hand joint. The average real-time motion intention recognition accuracy is 95.37 ± 0.97%.

Fusion Learning for sEMG Recognition of Multiple Upper-Limb Rehabilitation Movements.

Surface electromyogram (sEMG) signals have been used in human motion intention recognition, which has significant application prospects in the fields of rehabilitation medicine and cognitive science. However, some valuable dynamic information on upper-limb motions is lost in the process of feature extraction for sEMG signals, and there exists the fact that only a small variety of rehabilitation movements can be distinguished, and the classification accuracy is easily affected. To solve these dilemmas, first, a multiscale time–frequency information fusion representation method (MTFIFR) is proposed to obtain the time–frequency features of multichannel sEMG signals. Then, this paper designs the multiple feature fusion network (MFFN), which aims at strengthening the ability of feature extraction. Finally, a deep belief network (DBN) was introduced as the classification model of the MFFN to boost the generalization performance for more types of upper-limb movements. In the experiments, 12 kinds of upper-limb rehabilitation actions were recognized utilizing four sEMG sensors. The maximum identification accuracy was 86.10% and the average classification accuracy of the proposed MFFN was 73.49%, indicating that the time–frequency representation approach combined with the MFFN is superior to the traditional machine learning and convolutional neural network.

Stable epidermal electronic device with strain isolation induced by in situ Joule heating

Epidermal electronics play increasingly important roles in human-machine interfaces. However, their efficient fabrication while maintaining device stability and reliability remains an unresolved challenge. Here, a facile in situ Joule heating method is proposed for fabricating stable epidermal electronics on a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) substrate. Benefitting from the precise control of heating locations, the crystallization and enhanced rigidity of PVA are restricted to desired areas, leading to strain isolation of the active regions. As a result, the electronic device can be conformably attached to skin while showing negligible degradation in device performance during deformation. Based on this method, a flexible surface electromyography (sEMG) sensor with outstanding stability and highly comfortable wearability is demonstrated, showing high accuracy (91.83%) for human hand gesture recognition. These results imply that the fabrication method proposed in this research is a facile and reliable approach for the fabrication of epidermal electronics.

Can Steering Wheel Detect Your Driving Fatigue?

Automated Driving System (ADS) has attracted increasing attention but the state-of-the-art ADS largely on vehicle driving parameters and facial features, which lacks reliability. Approaches using physiological based sensors (e.g., electroencephalogram or electrocardiogram) are either too clumsy to wear or impractical to install. In this paper, we propose a novel driver fatigue detection method by embedding surface electromyography (sEMG) sensors on a steering wheel. Compared with existing methods, our approach is able to collect bio-signals in a non-intrusive way and detect driver fatigue at an earlier stage. The experimental results show that our approach outperforms existing methods with the weighted average F1 of about 90%. We also propose promising future directions to deploy this approach in real-life settings, such as applying multimodal learning using several supplementary sensors.

Clinical Use of Surface Electromyography to Track Acute Upper Extremity Muscle Recovery after Stroke: A Descriptive Case Study of a Single Patient.

Arm recovery varies greatly among stroke survivors. Wearable surface electromyography (sEMG) sensors have been used to track recovery in research; however, sEMG is rarely used within acute and subacute clinical settings. The purpose of this case study was to describe the use of wireless sEMG sensors to examine changes in muscle activity during acute and subacute phases of stroke recovery, and understand the participant’s perceptions of sEMG monitoring. Beginning three days post-stroke, one stroke survivor wore five wireless sEMG sensors on his involved arm for three to four hours, every one to three days. Muscle activity was tracked during routine care in the acute setting through discharge from inpatient rehabilitation. Three- and eight-month follow-up sessions were completed in the community. Activity logs were completed each session, and a semi-structured interview occurred at the final session. The longitudinal monitoring of muscle and movement recovery in the clinic and community was feasible using sEMG sensors. The participant and medical team felt monitoring was unobtrusive, interesting, and motivating for recovery, but desired greater in-session feedback to inform rehabilitation. While barriers in equipment and signal quality still exist, capitalizing on wearable sensing technology in the clinic holds promise for enabling personalized stroke recovery.

Active triggering control of pneumatic rehabilitation gloves based on surface electromyography sensors.

The portable and inexpensive hand rehabilitation robot has become a practical rehabilitation device for patients with hand dysfunction. A pneumatic rehabilitation glove with an active trigger control system is proposed, which is based on surface electromyography (sEMG) signals. It can trigger the hand movement based on the patient’s hand movement trend, which may improve the enthusiasm and efficiency of patient training. Firstly, analysis of sEMG sensor installation position on human’s arm and signal acquisition process were carried out. Then, according to the statistical law, three optimal eigenvalues of sEMG signals were selected as the follow-up neural network classification input. Using the back propagation (BP) neural network, the classifier of hand movement is established. Moreover, the mapping relationship between hand sEMG signals and hand actions is built by training and testing. Different patients choose the same optimal eigenvalues, and the calculation formula of eigenvalues’ amplitude is unique. Due to the differences among individuals, the weights and thresholds of each node in the BP neural network model corresponding to different patients are not the same. Therefore, the BP neural network model library is established, and the corresponding network is called for operation when different patients are trained. Finally, based on sEMG signal trigger, the pneumatic glove training control algorithm was proposed. The combination of the trigger signal waveform and the motion signal waveform indicates that the pneumatic rehabilitation glove is triggered to drive the patient’s hand movement. Preliminary tests have confirmed that the accuracy rate of trend recognition for hand movement is about 90%. In the future, clinical trials of patients will be conducted to prove the effectiveness of this system.

스프링의 탄성력으로 보행 효율 향상에 기여하는 디바이스 설계 및 웨어러블 로봇에서의 적용 방안

The dynamics arising from the foot-ground interaction plays an important role in human gait. Thus, it is imperative to fabricate an appropriate foot module for a powered exoskeleton to improve its performance. In this paper, a new design for shoes that effectively utilize the forefoot dynamics is described. This new design has metatarsophalangeal (MTP) joints with embedded torsion springs that connect the forefoot with the rest of the foot. Prototypes of these shoes resembling common sandals were produced via 3D printing. Torsion springs can store energy until the occurrence of toe-off in the gait cycle and then release energy till the termination of toe-off, which makes walking possible with less power consumption. The proper use of this toe-off force can lead to a more natural and effective gait for the wearers of powered exoskeletons. The ground reaction forces were measured to analyze if the new design could indeed increase the toe-off force. Surface electromyography (sEMG) sensors were used to measure the muscle activity to compare the relative muscle fatigue for the cases with and without the newly proposed design. Experimental results showed that the springs in MTP joints reduced the muscle fatigue by 4% and they enabled an increase in the supporting force by 10% when walking on a flat ground. Experiments conducted for running and climbing stairs showed a nearly 30% increase in the supporting force and a 30% decrease in muscle fatigue, indicating a significant improvement. The forefeet or MTP joints were more actively engaged during running or climbing stairs and the spring had enough chance to play its role. Further research should focus on the verification of the design by incorporating it into wearable robot.

A Hand Motor Skills Rehabilitation for the Injured Implemented on a Social Robot

In this work, we introduce HaReS, a hand rehabilitation system. Our proposal integrates a series of exercises, jointly developed with a foundation for those with motor and cognitive injuries, that are aimed at improving the skills of patients and the adherence to the rehabilitation plan. Our system takes advantage of a low-cost hand-tracking device to provide a quantitative analysis of the performance of the patient. It also integrates a low-cost surface electromyography (sEMG) sensor in order to provide insight about which muscles are being activated while completing the exercises. It is also modular and can be deployed on a social robot. We tested our proposal in two different facilities for rehabilitation with high success. The therapists and patients felt more motivation while using HaReS, which improved the adherence to the rehabilitation plan. In addition, the therapists were able to provide services to more patients than when they used their traditional methodology.

Classifying Upper Arm Gym-Workouts via Convolutional Neural Network by Imputing a Biopotential-Kinematic Relationship

This paper proposes a systemic approach to upper arm gym-workout classification according to spatio-temporal features depicted by biopotential as well as joint kinematics. The key idea of the proposed approach is to impute a biopotential-kinematic relationship by merging the joint kinematic data into a multichannel electromyography signal and visualizing the merged biopotential-kinematic data as an image. Under this approach, the biopotential-kinematic relationship can be imputed by counting on the functionality of a convolutional neural network: an automatic feature extractor followed by a classifier. First, while a professional trainer is demonstrating upper arm gym-workouts, electromyography and joint kinematic data are measured by an armband-type surface electromyography (sEMG) sensor and a RGB-d camera, respectively. Next, the measured data are augmented by adopting the amplitude adjusted Fourier Transform. Then, the augmented electromyography and joint kinematic data are visualized as one image by merging and calculating pixel components in three different ways. Lastly, for each visualized image type, upper arm gym-workout classification is performed via the convolutional neural network. To analyze classification accuracy, two-way rANOVA is performed with two factors: the level of data augmentation and visualized image type. The classification result substantiates that a biopotential-kinematic relationship can be successfully imputed by merging joint kinematic data in-between biceps- and triceps-electromyography channels and visualizing as a time-series heatmap image.

Effective recognition of human lower limb jump locomotion phases based on multi-sensor information fusion and machine learning.

Jump locomotion is the basic movement of human. However, no thorough research on the recognition of jump sub-phases has been carried so far. This paper aims to use multi-sensor information fusion and machine learning to recognize the human jump phase, which is crucial to the development of exoskeleton that assists jumping. The method of information fusion for sensors including sEMG, IMU, and footswitch sensor is studied. The footswitch signals are filtered by median filter. A processing method of synthesizing Euler angles into phase angle is proposed, which is beneficial to data integration. The jump locomotion is creatively segmented into five phases. The onset and offset of active segment are detected by sample entropy of sEMG and standard deviation of acceleration signal. The features are extracted from analysis windows using multi-sensor information fusion, and the dimension of feature matrix is selected. By comparing the performances of state-of-the-art machine learning classifiers, feature subsets of sEMG, IMU, and footswitch signals are selected from time domain features in a series of analysis window parameters. The average recognition accuracy of sEMG and IMU is 91.76% and 97.68%, respectively. When using the combination of sEMG, IMU, and footswitch signals, the average accuracy is 98.70%, which outperforms the combination of sEMG and IMU (97.97%, p < 0.01). Graphical Abstract The sub-phases of human locomotion are recognized based on multi-sensor information fusion and machine learning method. The feature data of the sub-phases is visualized in 3-dimensional space. The predicted states and the true states in a complete jump are compared along the time axis.

A Gesture Recognition System Based on Time Domain Features and Linear Discriminant Analysis

Surface electromyogram (sEMG) signals have been used to control multifunctional prosthetic hands. Researchers usually focused on the use of several channels with sEMG signals to identify more gestures without limiting the number of sEMG sensors. However, the residual muscles of an amputee are limited. Therefore, the point of a successful recognition system is to decrease the channels of sEMG signals to classify more gestures. To achieve this goal, we proposed a novel gesture recognition system, in which three channels of sEMG signals can classify nine gestures. In this recognition system, the time domain features, root mean square ratio, and autoregressive model, were selected to extract the features of the sEMG signals as compared with the time–frequency domain features. Furthermore, the linear discriminant analysis was adopted as the classifier. Consequently, the average accuracy rate of the presented system was 91.7%. Therefore, the proposed gesture recognition system is feasible to identify more gestures with less sensors.

Single-channel surface electromyography (sEMG) based control of a multi-functional prosthetic hand

Patients suffering from upper limb amputation experience a significant reduction in their ability to perform various tasks. The currently available myoelectric prostheses seek to reinstate the lost abilities of the amputees. However, most users abandon their devices due to high cost, large size, heavy weight, complexity, and limited functional control. This paper presents a multifunctional prosthetic hand that can perform six hand activities deploying a single-channel surface electromyography (sEMG) sensor. EMG signals for fifteen subjects (five amputees and ten intact) were acquired for six contraction levels of forearm muscles using the designed sensor. These levels were further classified to recognize six predefined hand gestures by a fuzzy logic classifier. The proposed system showed an excellent success (> 95%) and other performance parameters above 96%. The intended classification-based control scheme was further realized in real-time to achieve six grip patterns for the developed prosthetic prototype. The hand was tested on five subjects (two amputees and three intact) showed a percentage of success above 91% for accomplishing the dexterous grasping operations. The proposed approach is modest, efficient, and provides a low-cost solution to amputees with multiple degrees of freedom with a single channel EMG system.

Classification of Hand Gestures Based on Multi-channel EMG by Scale Average Wavelet Transform and Convolutional Neural Network

Predicting and accurately classifying intentions for human hand gestures can be used not only for active prosthetic hands, rehabilitation robots and entertainment robots but also for artificial intelligence robots in general. In this paper, first of all, source data of three hand gestures of grasping and three hand gestures of sign language are acquired by using the armband combined with eight sEMG (surface Electromyography) sensors. To classify these hand gestures, basically simple CNN (convolutional neural network) models with raw data, short-time Fourier transform (STFT), wavelet transform (WT), and scale average wavelet transform (SAWT) are applied, and their performances are compared. Finally, it is shown that by using a CNN with SAWT images, the accuracy can be improved up to 94.6% for selected hand gestures with higher accuracy and lower computational burden than conventional multi-channel STFT or WT.

Introduction of a sEMG Sensor System for Autonomous Use by Inexperienced Users

Wearable devices play an increasing role in the rehabilitation of patients with movement disorders. Although information about muscular activation is highly interesting, no approach exists that allows reliable collection of this information when the sensor is applied autonomously by the patient. This paper aims to demonstrate the proof-of-principle of an innovative sEMG sensor system, which can be used intuitively by patients while detecting their muscular activation with sufficient accuracy. The sEMG sensor system utilizes a multichannel approach based on 16 sEMG leads arranged circularly around the limb. Its design enables a stable contact between the skin surface and the system’s dry electrodes, fulfills the SENIAM recommendations regarding the electrode size and inter-electrode distance and facilitates a high temporal resolution. The proof-of-principle was demonstrated by elbow flexion/extension movements of 10 subjects, proving that it has root mean square values and a signal-to-noise ratio comparable to commercial systems based on pre-gelled electrodes. Furthermore, it can be easily placed and removed by patients with reduced arm function and without detailed knowledge about the exact positioning of the sEMG electrodes. With its features, the demonstration of the sEMG sensor system’s proof-of-principle positions it as a wearable device that has the potential to monitor muscular activation in home and community settings.

Locomotion Prediction for Lower Limb Prostheses in Complex Environments via sEMG and Inertial Sensors

Previous studies have shown that the motion intention recognition for lower limb prosthesis mainly focused on the identification of performed gait. However, the bionic prosthesis needs to know the next movement at the beginning of a new gait, especially in complex operation environments. In this paper, an upcoming locomotion prediction scheme via multilevel classifier fusion was proposed for the complex operation. At first, two motion states, including steady state and transient state, were defined. Steady-state recognition was backtracking of a completed gait, which would be used as prior knowledge of motion prediction. In steady-state recognition, surface electromyographic (sEMG) and inertial sensors were fused to improve recognition accuracy; five typical locomotion modes were recognized by random forest classifier with over 97.8% accuracy. The transient state was defined as an observation period at the initial stage of upcoming movement, in which only the sEMG signal was recorded due to the limitation of sliding window length. LightGBM classifier was validated to outperform other methods in the accuracy and prediction time of transient-state recognition. Finally, a simplified HMM model based on prior knowledge and observation result was constructed to predict upcoming locomotion. The results indicated that the locomotion prediction was over 91% accuracy. The proposed scheme implements the locomotion prediction at the initial stage of each gait and provides critical information for the gait control of lower limb prosthesis.

Automatic Speech Recognition in Different Languages Using High-Density Surface Electromyography Sensors

Automatic speech recognition (ASR) based on surface electromyography (sEMG) sensors is an important technology converting electrical signals into computer-readable textual messages, which can overcome the limitation of acoustic sensors that are easily contaminated by environmental noises. However, current placements of sEMG sensors mainly depend on the experimenter’s experience, which could miss important information about the major muscular activities and lead to the decline of classification performance. In this study, 120 closely-spaced sEMG sensors were utilized to collect high-density sEMG signals for recognizing ten digits in English and Chinese. The linear discriminant analysis classifier was used to classify the speaking tasks, and the sequential forward selection algorithm was utilized for analyzing the optimal position of the sensors. The results showed that the HD sEMG energy maps could help visualize the dynamic muscle activities during the speaking process, and significantly different muscular contraction patterns were observed for different speaking tasks. The classification accuracies when using the facial sensors were significantly lower than those on the neck, although with the same number of sensors. Moreover, the classification rates could be higher than 90% with only 15 optimally selected sensors that were mainly distributed on the neck instead of the face. This study suggests that the neck muscles could be the main contributor, and more sEMG sensors should be placed on the neck to improve the ASR performance. The findings of this study could provide valuable clues for the development of a practical sEMG-based speech recognition system, especially for patients with speaking disorders.

Effective Assessments of a Short-Duration Poor Posture on Upper Limb Muscle Fatigue Before Physical Exercise.

A forward head and rounded shoulder posture is a poor posture that is widely seen in everyday life. It is known that sitting in such a poor posture with long hours will bring health issues such as muscle pain. However, it is not known whether sitting in this poor posture for a short period of time will affect human activities. This paper investigates the effects of a short-duration poor posture before some typical physical activities such as push-ups. The experiments are set up as follows. Fourteen male subjects are asked to do push-ups until fatigue with two surface electromyography (sEMG) at the upper limb. Two days later, they are asked to sit in this poor posture for 15 min with eight sEMG sensors located at given back muscles. Then they do the push-ups after the short-duration poor posture. The observations from the median frequency of sEMG signals at the upper limb indicate that the short-duration poor posture does affect the fatigue procedure of push-ups. A significant decreasing trend of the performance of push-ups is obtained after sitting in this poor posture. Such effects indicate that some parts of the back muscles indeed get fatigued with only 15 min sitting in this poor posture. By further investigating the time-frequency components of sEMG of back muscles, it is observed that the low and middle frequencies of sEMG signals from the infraspinatus muscle of the dominant side are demonstrated to be more prone to fatigue with the poor posture. Although this study focuses only on push-ups, similar experiments can be arranged for other physical exercises as well. This study provides new insights into the effect of a short-duration poor posture before physical activities. These insights can be used to guide athletes to pay attention to postures before physical activities to improve performance and reduce the risk of injury.