A Review of Non-Invasive Techniques to Detect and Predict Localised Muscle Fatigue

Muscle fatigue is an established area of research and various types of muscle fatigue have been investigated in order to fully understand the condition. This paper gives an overview of the various non-invasive techniques available for use in automated fatigue detection, such as mechanomyography, electromyography, near-infrared spectroscopy and ultrasound for both isometric and non-isometric contractions. Various signal analysis methods are compared by illustrating their applicability in real-time settings. This paper will be of interest to researchers who wish to select the most appropriate methodology for research on muscle fatigue detection or prediction, or for the development of devices that can be used in, e.g., sports scenarios to improve performance or prevent injury. To date, research on localised muscle fatigue focuses mainly on the clinical side. There is very little research carried out on the implementation of detecting/predicting fatigue using an autonomous system, although recent research on automating the process of localised muscle fatigue detection/prediction shows promising results

MÉTODOS PARA DETERMINAR EL ÍNDICE DE FATIGA MUSCULAR A TRAVÉS DE SEMG: REVISIÓN DE LA LITERATURA (METHODS OF DETERMINING MUSCLE FATIGUE INDEX THROUGH SEMG: LITERATURE REVIEW)

Resumen En este artículo de revisión de la literatura se investigan algunos métodos utilizados comúnmente para el análisis de las señales eléctricas generadas en los músculos con la finalidad de determinar la fatiga muscular. El propósito del mismo es ayudar al lector a seleccionar un método sobre el cuál trabajar para poder determinar la fatiga muscular. Se realiza una comparación entre los métodos para determinar cuál es el más apto para su posterior integración en un sistema capaz de advertir sobre la presencia de la fatiga. Palabras Clave: Análisis, Electromiografía, Fatiga muscular, Métodos, Superficial. Abstract Some methods commonly used in the analysis of electrical signals generated by muscles with the purpose to determinate muscle fatigue are investigated in this literature review. The main goal is to guide the reader to select a method with which work to determinate muscle fatigue. A comparison is made between methods to find which is the more useful for a future integration in a system capable of warn on the beginning of muscle fatigue. Keywords: Electromyography, Muscle fatigue, Signal analysis, Wavelet

ESTIMATION AND PREDICTION OF THE HUMAN GAIT DYNAMICS FOR THE CONTROL OF AN ANKLE-FOOT PROSTHESIS

With the growing population of amputees, powered prostheses can be a solution to improve the quality of life for many people. Powered ankle-foot prostheses can be made to behave similar to the lost limb via controllers that emulate the mechanical impedance of the human ankle. Therefore, the understanding of human ankle dynamics is of major significance. First, this work reports the modulation of the mechanical impedance via two mechanisms: the co-contraction of the calf muscles and a change of mean ankle torque and angle. Then, the mechanical impedance of the ankle was determined, for the first time, as a multivariable and time-varying system. These findings reveal the importance of recognizing the state of the user during the gait when the user interacts with the environment. In addition to studying the ankle impedance, a wearable device was designed and evaluated to further the studies on robotic perception for ankle-foot prostheses. This device is capable of characterizing the ground environment and estimating the gait state using visual-inertial sensors. Finally, this study contributes to the field of ankle-foot prostheses by identifying the mechanical behavior of the human ankle and developing a platform to test perception algorithms for the control of robotic prostheses

Muscle Force Estimation and Fatigue Detection Based on sEMG Signals

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH