Projects:2016s2-240 Electromyographic Signal Processing for Controlling an Exoskeleton

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Introduction

Background

The exoskeleton is a wearable device which can reduce physiotherapist intervention but ensure the efficacy of rehabilitation in the medical and health area, which can also help soldiers fight better because it can help them get better protection and carry more weapons and equipment in the military area. Recent years, researchers from around the world are working hard so that the exoskeleton can be widely used in practice.

EMG signal is a bio-medical signal which generated from muscle activities. EMG signal originates from motor neurons in the spinal cord, which is the part of the central nervous system. Motor neurons are in the cell body; their axons extend to the muscle fiber and couples fiber at the end plate area. Muscle movement is controlled by awareness, when the brain is excited and downward conduction, the somatosensory and dendrites of the motor neurons in the central nervous system generate electrical impulses under the stimulation from synapses. These electrical impulses are along the neurons of the axon conduction to the peripheral nerve and muscle contact. When the motor nerve contacts the muscle, the axon branches to many fibers, and each branch ends in the muscle fibers to form synapses, which are called motor end plate. The generated electrical impulses are broadcasting along muscle fibers, which cause a serious change inside muscle fibers, and then produce a contraction of muscle fibers. Therefore, a large number of muscle fibers produce muscle contraction. It can be seen that the spread of action potential of muscle fibers leads to the muscle contraction, while the spread of electrical signals in human soft tissue results in the current field, and the potential difference is represented between the detection electrodes, which is EMG signal [1]. Usually, the amplitude of EMG signal is between 50μV and 5mV. The bandwidth is of EMG signal is from 0—500Hz.

SEMG signal is a bioelectric signal released from the neuromuscular activity recorded by the electrode from the surface of the human skeletal muscle. Different muscle movement patterns are caused by different muscle contractions, and their accompanying SEMG signals are different. It can be used to research or detect the muscle bioelectric activity to determine muscle system skills as well as morphological changes and contribute to neuromuscular system research or provide diagnosis [2]. The frequency range of the SEMG signal is from 0 to 2000Hz, but from the perspective of intensity, SEMG signals are mainly distributed between 20 and 500Hz.

Aim

This project was based on signal processing and focused on developing algorithms for feature extraction and classification to control lower limbs of an exoskeleton. The feature extracted from the recorded EMG signal will be compared to the previous training recordings to identify what kind of movement the muscles are trying to implement.

The project built up a system that has following contents: 1) Surface EMG signals recording. 2) Surface EMG signal denoising. 3) Surface EMG feature extraction. 4) Feature comparing and recognizing with the help of previous data.

The outcome of the project is a control system that extracts the feature of the input EMG signal and then delivers the muscle state as an output to the motor control of the exoskeleton. The system is accurate and fast in real-time processing.

 
      System breakdown

Approach

In this project, three algorithms are used to analyze the EMG signal.

Process

Usually, different actions generate different powers, therefore, the muscle action ratio can be used. Muscle action ratio is measured by the contraction of muscle rigidity, and the degree of this contraction depends on the frequency of nervous fiber transfer impulse. Therefore, power ratio can be used to represent different EMG signal which generated from the variety of actions by the way of intensity estimation [3]. The value K can be used to represent this ratio. The steps of calculating this value K are the following: By frequency spectrum, find central frequency P(f); Calculating the power of a segment which is [P(f)-20, P(f)+20]; Dividing this calculated value by the whole segment value, the formula is

The reason for using the segment of 5Hz to 400Hz is the main frequency of SEMG signal is between 5Hz and 400Hz. Comparing this value K with reference signal recorded in the database, identify the threshold value. As shown in the following two charts, the shadow area is the power of the center frequency±20Hz; furthermore, many signals with smaller amplitudes existed when the muscle is contracted, so there is much more power speared out when the muscle is contracted. Therefore, the value K of the relaxed muscle is bigger that the value K of the contracted muscle. This is verified through the off-line test.

During the off-line analysis, as for the 64-channels SEMG signal motioned in the previous part, extracting one channel signal (assuming channel 1), the center frequency got is 76.29Hz. Figure 9 is the power spectrum of channel 1 signal, and its center frequency has been marked. Then using proportional value K to identify muscle action. Figure 10 is the plot of the calculated value K. Comparing with the corresponding time domain signal, it is suggested that the value K changes significantly when muscle switches from tight situation to relax situation and vice versa.

In real-time analysis, considering the condition of the muscle activity, the value K will be calculated every half second. Because the sampling frequency is 4000Hz, the data segment is 2000. Usually, the first step is to identify the threshold value K, which is operated through visual observation, because this value depends on who the subject is, which channel is used and the electrode placed on which muscle. The chart below is the value K captured in the real-time test, the threshold value is 0.91 this time. Then typing this value into the MATLAB code, the system will do the classification work automatically in the real-time experiment and the result will be displayed on the screen. If the calculated value K is bigger than the threshold value, then muscle is relaxed; if the calculated value K is smaller than the threshold value, then muscle is contracted.

                                       The value K with corresponding denoised EMG signal

Result

There were 3 female subjects participated in the real-time test, and their ages were 24, 25, 26 respectively. Each participant was tested 10 times for 50 seconds each time, which means 100 segments of data each time was processed. The following table illustrates the error rate for each time.

Team members

Hanzhi Wang & Junyao Wang

Supervisiors

A. Prof. Mathias Baumert

Dr. Tien-fu Lu