Low-cost Active Dry-Contact Surface EMG Sensor for Bionic Arms

TL;DR

This paper introduces a low-cost, active dry-contact surface EMG sensor designed for real-time gesture recognition in bionic arms, demonstrating promising accuracy and compatibility with wearable systems.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel, affordable active dry-contact sEMG sensor capable of real-time gesture classification for prosthetic control.

Findings

Average classification accuracy of 85% in 4 subjects

Sensor's common-mode rejection ratio measured at 59 dB

Sensor is compatible with various amplifiers for wearable use

Abstract

Surface electromyography (sEMG) is a popular bio-signal used for controlling prostheses and finger gesture recognition mechanisms. Myoelectric prostheses are costly, and most commercially available sEMG acquisition systems are not suitable for real-time gesture recognition. In this paper, a method of acquiring sEMG signals using novel low-cost, active, dry-contact, flexible sensors has been proposed. Since the active sEMG sensor was developed to be used along with a bionic arm, the sensor was tested for its ability to acquire sEMG signals that could be used for real-time classification of five selected gestures. In a study of 4 subjects, the average classification accuracy for real-time gesture classification using the active sEMG sensor system was 85%. The common-mode rejection ratio of the sensor was measured to 59 dB, and thus the sensor's performance was not substantially limited by its active circuitry. The proposed sensors can be interfaced with a variety of amplifiers to perform fully wearable sEMG acquisition. This satisfies the need for a low-cost sEMG acquisition system for prostheses.