Techniques of EMG signal analysis: detection, processing, classification and applications

Electromyography (EMG) signals can be used for clinical/biomedical applications, Evolvable Hardware Chip (EHW) development, and modern human computer interaction. EMG signals acquired from muscles require advanced methods for detection, decomposition, processing, and classification. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the various methodologies and algorithms for EMG signal analysis to provide efficient and effective ways of understanding the signal and its nature. We further point up some of the hardware implementations using EMG focusing on applications related to prosthetic hand control, grasp recognition, and human computer interaction. A comparison study is also given to show performance of various EMG signal analysis methods. This paper provides researchers a good understanding of EMG signal and its analysis procedures. This knowledge will help them develop more powerful, flexible, and efficient applications

AN INVESTIGATION OF ELECTROMYOGRAPHIC (EMG) CONTROL OF DEXTROUS HAND PROSTHESES FOR TRANSRADIAL AMPUTEES

In reference to IEEE copyrighted material which is used with permission in this thesis, the IEEE does not endorse any of Plymouth University's products or services.There are many amputees around the world who have lost a limb through conflict, disease or an accident. Upper-limb prostheses controlled using surface Electromyography (sEMG) offer a solution to help the amputees; however, their functionality is limited by the small number of movements they can perform and their slow reaction times. Pattern recognition (PR)-based EMG control has been proposed to improve the functional performance of prostheses. It is a very promising approach, offering intuitive control, fast reaction times and the ability to control a large number of degrees of freedom (DOF). However, prostheses controlled with PR systems are not available for everyday use by amputees, because there are many major challenges and practical problems that need to be addressed before clinical implementation is possible. These include lack of individual finger control, an impractically large number of EMG electrodes, and the lack of deployment protocols for EMG electrodes site selection and movement optimisation. Moreover, the inability of PR systems to handle multiple forces is a further practical problem that needs to be addressed. The main aim of this project is to investigate the research challenges mentioned above via non-invasive EMG signal acquisition, and to propose practical solutions to help amputees. In a series of experiments, the PR systems presented here were tested with EMG signals acquired from seven transradial amputees, which is unique to this project. Previous studies have been conducted using non-amputees. In this work, the challenges described are addressed and a new protocol is proposed that delivers a fast clinical deployment of multi-functional upper limb prostheses controlled by PR systems. Controlling finger movement is a step towards the restoration of lost human capabilities, and is psychologically important, as well as physically. A central thread running through this work is the assertion that no two amputees are the same, each suffering different injuries and retaining differing nerve and muscle structures. This work is very much about individualised healthcare, and aims to provide the best possible solution for each affected individual on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, the approach has been to optimise the solution (in terms of function and reliability) for each individual, as opposed to developing a generic solution, where performance is optimised against a test population. This work is unique, in that it contributes to improving the quality of life for each individual amputee by optimising function and reliability. The main four contributions of the thesis are as follows: 1- Individual finger control was achieved with high accuracy for a large number of finger movements, using six optimally placed sEMG channels. This was validated on EMG signals for ten non-amputee and six amputee subjects. Thumb movements were classified successfully with high accuracy for the first time. The outcome of this investigation will help to add more movements to the prosthesis, and reduce hardware and computational complexity. 2- A new subject-specific protocol for sEMG site selection and reliable movement subset optimisation, based on the amputee’s needs, has been proposed and validated on seven amputees. This protocol will help clinicians to perform an efficient and fast deployment of prostheses, by finding the optimal number and locations of EMG channels. It will also find a reliable subset of movements that can be achieved with high performance. 3- The relationship between the force of contraction and the statistics of EMG signals has been investigated, utilising an experimental design where visual feedback from a Myoelectric Control Interface (MCI) helped the participants to produce the correct level of force. Kurtosis values were found to decrease monotonically when the contraction level increased, thus indicating that kurtosis can be used to distinguish different forces of contractions. 4- The real practical problem of the degradation of classification performance as a result of the variation of force levels during daily use of the prosthesis has been investigated, and solved by proposing a training approach and the use of a robust feature extraction method, based on the spectrum. The recommendations of this investigation improve the practical robustness of prostheses controlled with PR systems and progress a step further towards clinical implementation and improving the quality of life of amputees. The project showed that PR systems achieved a reliable performance for a large number of amputees, taking into account real life issues such as individual finger control for high dexterity, the effect of force level variation, and optimisation of the movements and EMG channels for each individual amputee. The findings of this thesis showed that the PR systems need to be appropriately tuned before usage, such as training with multiple forces to help to reduce the effect of force variation, aiming to improve practical robustness, and also finding the optimal EMG channel for each amputee, to improve the PR system’s performance. The outcome of this research enables the implementation of PR systems in real prostheses that can be used by amputees.Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and Baghdad University- Baghdad/Ira

A note on the probability distribution function of the surface electromyogram signal

AbstractThe probability density function (PDF) of the surface electromyogram (EMG) signals has been modelled with Gaussian and Laplacian distribution functions. However, a general consensus upon the PDF of the EMG signals is yet to be reached, because not only are there several biological factors that can influence this distribution function, but also different analysis techniques can lead to contradicting results. Here, we recorded the EMG signal at different isometric muscle contraction levels and characterised the probability distribution of the surface EMG signal with two statistical measures: bicoherence and kurtosis. Bicoherence analysis did not help to infer the PDF of measured EMG signals. In contrast, with kurtosis analysis we demonstrated that the EMG PDF at isometric, non-fatiguing, low contraction levels is super-Gaussian. Moreover, kurtosis analysis showed that as the contraction force increases the surface EMG PDF tends to a Gaussian distribution

Surface Electromyography Feature Extraction Based on Wavelet Transform

Considering the vast variety of EMG signal applications such as rehabilitation of people suffering from some mobility limitations, scientists have done much research on EMG control system. In this regard, feature extraction of EMG signal has been highly valued as a significant technique to extract the desired information of EMG signal and remove unnecessary parts. In this study, Wavelet Transform (WT) has been applied as the main technique to extract Surface EMG (SEMG) features because WT is consistent with the nature of EMG as a nonstationary signal. Furthermore, two evaluation criteria, namely, RES index (the ratio of a Euclidean distance to a standard deviation) and scatter plot are recruited to investigate the efficiency of wavelet feature extraction. The results illustrated an improvement in class separability of hand movements in feature space. Accordingly, it has been shown that only the SEMG features extracted from first and second level of WT decomposition by second order of Daubechies family (db2) yielded the best class separability

Introduction to this Special Issue: Intelligent Data Analysis on Electromyography and Electroneurography

Computer-aided electromyography (EMG) and elec- troneurography (ENG) have become indispensable tools in the daily activities of neurophysiology laboratories in facilitating quantitative analysis and decision making in clinical neurophysiology, rehabilitation, sports medicine, and studies of human physiology. These tools form the basis of a new era in the practice of neurophysiology facilitating the: (i) Standardization . Diagnoses obtained with similar criteria in different laboratories can be veri- fied. (ii) Sensitivity . Neurophysiological findings in a particular subject under investigation may be compared with a database of normal values to determine whether abnormality exists or not. (iii) Specificity . Findings may be compared with databases derived from patients with known diseases, to evaluate whether they fit a specific diagnosis. (iv) Equivalence . Results from serial examin- ations on the same patient may be compared to decide whether there is evidence of disease progression or of response to treatment. Also, findings obtained from dif- ferent quantitative methods may be contrasted to deter- mine which are most sensitive and specific. Different methodologies have been developed in com- puter-aided EMG and ENG analysis ranging from simple quantitative measures of the recorded potentials, to more complex knowledge-based and neural network systems that enable the automated assessment of neuromuscular disorders. However, the need still exists for the further advancement and standardization of these method- ologies, especially nowadays with the emerging health telematics technologies which will enable their wider application in the neurophysiological laboratory. The main objective of this Special Issue of Medical Engin- eering & Physics is to provide a snapshot of current activities and methodologies in intelligent data analysis in peripheral neurophysiology. A total of 12 papers are published in this Special Issue under the following topics: Motor Unit Action Potential (MUAP) Analysis, Surface EMG (SEMG) Analysis, Electroneurography, and Decision Systems. In this intro- duction, the papers are briefly introduced, following a brief review of the major achievements in quantitative electromyography and electroneuropathy

Bio-signal based control in assistive robots: a survey

Recently, bio-signal based control has been gradually deployed in biomedical devices and assistive robots for improving the quality of life of disabled and elderly people, among which electromyography (EMG) and electroencephalography (EEG) bio-signals are being used widely. This paper reviews the deployment of these bio-signals in the state of art of control systems. The main aim of this paper is to describe the techniques used for (i) collecting EMG and EEG signals and diving these signals into segments (data acquisition and data segmentation stage), (ii) dividing the important data and removing redundant data from the EMG and EEG segments (feature extraction stage), and (iii) identifying categories from the relevant data obtained in the previous stage (classification stage). Furthermore, this paper presents a summary of applications controlled through these two bio-signals and some research challenges in the creation of these control systems. Finally, a brief conclusion is summarized

CES-513 Stages for Developing Control Systems using EMG and EEG Signals: A survey

Bio-signals such as EMG (Electromyography), EEG (Electroencephalography), EOG (Electrooculogram), ECG (Electrocardiogram) have been deployed recently to develop control systems for improving the quality of life of disabled and elderly people. This technical report aims to review the current deployment of these state of the art control systems and explain some challenge issues. In particular, the stages for developing EMG and EEG based control systems are categorized, namely data acquisition, data segmentation, feature extraction, classification, and controller. Some related Bio-control applications are outlined. Finally a brief conclusion is summarized.

Featureless EMG Pattern Recognition Based On Convolutional Neural Network

Feature extraction is important step to extract the useful and valuable information from the electromyography (EMG) signal. However, the process of feature extraction requires prior knowledge and expertise. In this paper, a featureless EMG pattern recognition technique is proposed to tackle the feature extraction problem. Initially, spectrogram is employed to transform the raw EMG signal into time-frequency representation (TFR). The TFRs or spectrogram images are then directly fed into the convolutional neural network (CNN) for classification. Two CNN models are proposed to learn the features automatically from the spectrogram images without the need of manual feature extraction. The proposed CNN models are evaluated using the EMG data acquired from the publicly access NinaPro database. Our results show that CNN classifier can offer the best mean classification accuracy of 88.04% for the recognition of the hand and wrist movements. © 2019 Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science