Acquisition and Processing Real-time EMG signals
for Prosthesis Active Hand Movements
Sumit A. Raurale
Department of Electronics & Telecommunication
Government College of Engineering,
Amravati, India-444604
Email: sumit.raurale@gmail.com
AbstractIn the field of Robotics, prosthesis hand amputees
are highly benefited for various active hand movements based on
wrist-hand mobility. The development of an advanced human-
machine interface has been an interesting research topic in
the field of rehabilitation, in which biomedical signals such
as electromyography (EMG) signals, plays a significant role.
Sensing of EMG signals concerns with the signal capturing,
conditioning, feature extraction and classification of different
active hand movements for controlled human-assisting robots or
prosthetic applications. This paper concerns with the acquisition
and analysis of EMG signals for multiple active hand movements
based on wrist-hand mobility for control of prosthesis robotic
hand. To recognize the effectiveness of hand prosthesis, Anterior
and Posterior forearm muscles are being considered for better
exploitation of EMG signals. The Feature is extracted using
statistical analysis and pattern classification is done by linear
discriminant analysis (LDA) with estimated classification rate of
about (80-86)%.
KeywordsActive hand movements; EMG signals; Feature
extraction; Linear discriminant analysis (LDA); Prosthesis hand.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Bioelectrical signals are generally considered as electric
currents produced by the sum of electrical potential differences
across a dedicated tissue which results in different electro-
chemical proceedings happening in the body. EMG signal is
one of the optimum known bioelectrical signals which can be
sensed over the skin surface or directly with contact to the
muscles which generates the electrical activity of the muscle
fibres during contraction or relaxation. Each movement of mus-
cles relates to a specific pattern of activation of several muscle
fibres through which acquiring multi channels EMG signals
can be used to identify the corresponding movement. As per
the complex nature of EMG signals, comprehensive analysis
for feature evaluation and classification is often a difficult
task, especially if the EMG relates to dedicated movement.
For this purpose, different pattern recognition analysis which
consisting of feature extraction and classification, have been
applied on the raw EMG signals to extract the specific feature.
This concept has been used for the development of myoelectric
prosthesis control systems obtained by feature analysis with
pattern classification of EMG signals.
Many EMG control systems are currently available that are
capable of controlling a precise robotic prosthetic limb such
as a hand, an elbow, or a wrist. These systems extract control
information from the EMG signals based on an evaluation of
the amplitude or the rate of change of the EMG accordance to
time duration. This information is used to specify the function
to be performed for the prosthesis assistive systems. Once the
function is determined, it can be driven at a constant speed,
or its speed may be controlled in a proportional way for
the myoelectric activities. Although these systems have been
very successful, the amplitude and rate coded schemes do not
provide sufficient information to reliably control more than one
device.
The raw EMG contains valuable information about the
movements still it cannot be directly useful before quantifica-
tion. Numerous signal processing techniques are functioned on
raw EMG to get precise EMG signal. Several researches have
been made in biomedical signal processing for emerging bet-
ter algorithms, improvement in methodologies, improvement
in noise less signal detection and to acquire precise EMG
signals. Since muscles are deep benith the skin surface, thus
the power spectrum of EMG is limited to 500Hz. Thus the
electrodes can be positioned on the lower forearm muscles
which are responsible for hand movements. For acquiring and
discriminate six movements, namely open and close hand,
hand pitch up or down, move the thumb in abduction or
adduction for prosthesis hand assessment. Thus the resulting
prosthesis can give the user a more natural grasping movement,
also allowed to move the wrist. Furthermore the enhancement
can be carried out for different gripping movements and also
to discriminate more natural movements. In our work, the
EMG signals are acquired from just two electrodes which
are optimally processed in real time with statistical feature
evaluation and classification is done by linear discriminant
analysis (LDA) for higher classification rate.
II. ACQUISITION OF EMG SIGNALS
A. Prosthesis Field
The hand prosthesis are differentiated as active and passive
hand prostheses. Active hand prosthesis can freely actuate
the hand movements to some degree with ease in accessible
operation as controlled by the patient. Operation wise active
hand prosthesis can be classified as [9]:
Prostheses moved by the patient
Prostheses with external source of energy, either myo-
electric command or electronic command.
The regulation of an actuated prosthesis is usually based on
EMG, which is the electric activity of activated muscles, mea-
sured from surface electrodes. There are two types of interfaces
between the patient and the prosthesis are observed: invasive
and non-invasive. The former gather control signals directly
from the users nervous system, either via brain implants or
surgical use of electrodes which delivers a high signal quality,
since the signals can be gathered exactly from the right areas;
but they involve surgery and all related psychological issues.
On the other hand, non-invasive interfaces are easier to handle
and maintain, but require a much better signal conditioning,
since they usually work with surface signals and observation
tracking where the muscle activation potentials are gathered by
electrodes placed on the patients forearm skin; these potentials
can be used to track which muscles the patient is willing to
activate, and with what force. Surface EMG is therefore, in
principle, a cheap and easy way of detecting what the patient
wants the prosthesis to do.
B. Muscles Acting on Hand Prosthesis
For signal acquisition and defining scheme, there is a need
to understand which muscles are relevant and how they are
connected to the movements. There are many muscles in the
forearm devoted to move the wrist and the hand [11]; we have
enlist some important muscles and their related movements.
The Abductor pollicis muscle is devoted for thumb action;
Extensor digitorum communis muscle is devoted for Extension
of fingers and wrist action; Extensor pollicis longus muscle
is devoted for extension of thumb and abduction of wrist;
Extensor indicis muscle is devoted for extension of thumb and
abduction of index; Extensor digiti quinti muscle is devoted
for extension of the little finger; Flexor digitorum profundus
muscle is devoted for flexion of interphalanxes articulations
and wrist; Flexor pollicis longus muscle is devoted for flexion
of the thumb as shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1. Classification of different forearm muscles
C. Kinds of movement for the prosthesis
Since the hand has many degrees of freedom (20 only
for the fingers) [11] and it is impossible to replicate all of
them in a simple way, thus we only consider the movements
which allows the patient to manipulate objects in a sufficient
way. There are only two movements available in commercial
prosthesis, namely opening and closing the hand. Some more
movements like Abduction of the thumb, extension or flexion
of the wrist can be considered in prosthesis field. Since the
muscles that move the thumb are very deep, we can only
consider thumb extension and leave the control of thumb flex-
ion to an empirical supervisor. Some active hand movements
discrimination is illustrated in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. Various Active hand movements: a) wrist extension b)wrist flexion
c)hand opened d)hand closed e) thumb abduction
D. Electrodes and Signal Acquiring
EMG signals are the appearance of impulses which are
initially generated in the central nervous system and then travel
to their final destination, where they produce the desired action.
There are two main kinds of electrodes that might be used
for measuring EMG signals: surface and inserted electrodes.
Inserted electrodes are very thin wires or needles that are
inserted inside the muscles which could be painful, and are
not removable without surgery [8]. Due to this factors surface
electrodes are mostly preferred which are made of metal and
covered with a thin coat of silver chloride (AgCl).
The muscles which are responsible of hand motion are
deeply placed in the forearm, while measuring the myoelectric
signals with surface electrodes it is not possible to exclusively
acquire the signal of the involved muscle, but we obtain the
superimposition of every signal generated between the point of
interest and the detection surface. This phenomenon is known
as Cross-talk. By using bipolar electrodes, the common
information registered by both electrodes is mostly eliminated
by a differential amplifier. The acquired signal contains noise
and an offset signal; furthermore not all the sequences are
observed properly as the electrode is in practice a low-pass
filter and distorts some spectral components of the signal. The
cut frequency of 5mm diameter electrode is about 360Hz and
for a 20mm diameter is about 100Hz. Equation 1 shows a
simple model of the EMG signal:
N
X 1
x(n) = h(r)e(n r) + w(n) (1)
r=0
where x(n), modelled EMG signal; e(n), point processed repre-
senting the firing impulses; h(r), represents the MUAP; w(n),
zero mean addictive white Gaussian noise and N is the number
of motor unit firings.
III. D EVELOPMENT OF EMG M ODULE
The different module that evaluates the acquiesced EMG
signals are Preamplifier; Band pass filter; Amplifier and Ana-
log to digital convertion as shown in Fig. 3. In presence of
muscular activity, the EMG signal is picked up by the two
Fig. 3. EMG signal development modules
surface electrodes located on the forearm. The common signal
is then attenuated by the differential amplifier of common
mode reject ratio (CMRR) 120db followed by the Preampli-
fier whose input impedance is kept 50k to achieve adequate
voltage levels to attenuate electrical interferences. The pre-
amplifier used is a differential amplifier (INA128 from Texas
Instruments) with following characteristics:
High common-mode input impedance;
CMRR greater than 85 dB;
Noise (short-circuited inputs) less than 1.5V (rms);
Bandwidth from 15 to 500 Hz.
Then signal is passed to a Sallen Key Band pass filter
with operation amplifier (OPA4131 from Texas Instruments)
to obtain the signal in frequency range of 15-500Hz and to
eliminate most of the noise outside this range that affects the
myoelectric signals. At the third stage, the Amplifier, raises
the voltage levels up to the TTL standard which is accepted by
the controller for further processing as shown in Fig.4 [1]. The
last phase is the Analog-to-digital conversion of the signal
is done which is then further transmitted to the controller [9]
for feature classification.
Fig. 4. Acquiesced forearm EMG signal pattern of wrist-hand movement
IV. C LASSIFICATION OF EMG SIGNALS
A. Basic Design and Constraints
The classifier must be able to differentiate different features
from the evaluated EMG signals from the natural constraint
movement. According to an empirical analysis, the maxi-
mum delay, tolerable by the user, between the commanded
movement generated by the signal and the instant when the
prosthesis starts moving is about 300ms; since the signal
acquisition can require 200ms for hardware constraints and
the classifier is operated in the maximum time of 100ms from
the output of the desired movement. The controller uses a
pattern recognition approach, as illustrated in Fig. 5. It acquires
and classify data from a dual channel only from 2 surface
electrodes placed at forearm muscles.
Fig. 5. Pattern recognition open loop controller for feature extraction and
classification
The architecture for the classifier is generally based on
Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) with threshold detection
approach. Thus the processing time for the pattern recognition
a is very low, but the time to extract the features from the
unknown signal should be higher than 100ms, that is the above
defined maximum time available to remain inside the feature
pattern of 300ms. For this reason a set of statistical parameters
that are easy and fast to analyse, should be separately classified
with the threshold parameters for distinct classification.
B. Feature Extraction
After the development of the EMG signal the next step is
to extract the originated feature from the EMG signal. The
following statistical time sequence parameters for analysing
and characterization of extracted EMG signals patterns are:
1) Mean Absolute Value (MAV):
N
1 X
Xi = |xn | (2)
N n=1
the average on the i-segment made of n samples. This
parameter will be used also by the controller to set
the velocity of movement of the prosthesis, since the
velocity will be linearly correlated to MAV.
2) Difference between the MAV of two samples,
X i = X i+1 X i (3)
3) Variance of signal (VAR) is the mean value of the
square of the deviation of that variable which is close
to zero and is used for evaluating the feature from the
EMG signal. Variance of EMG can be calculated by,
N
1 X 2
V AR = x (4)
N 1 n=1 n
4) Zero count, i.e. number of times the signal passes
through zero. To cut the noise we use a threshold of
0.01V, corresponding to a noise of 4V amplified
5000 times. The counter of zero-passing is incre-
mented if the sign of Xn is different from the sign
of Xn+1 and
|xn xn+1 | 0.01V (5)
 5) Sign changing; given 3 consecutive samples we in- of threshold voltage levels for the hand movement, the feature
crement a counter if is being defined accordingly for the different movements.
xn > xn1 and xn > xn+1 and |xn xn+1 | 0.01V
(6) V. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION
or EMG signals of different active hand movements obtained
xn < xn1 and xn < xn+1 and |xn xn1 | 0.01V from the module are transformed into different pulsating
(7) voltage levels. The separation of different features is done by
6) Length of the signal: various threshold levels as analysed with predefined feature
database in the system. We use only the first 200ms of the
N
X signal for classification, since this is the maximum time period
L= |xn xn1 | (8) where we have observed the intended threshold level for
n=1 respected movements. The pattern classification is done using
raw EMG, filtered EMG, Pre-amplified EMG and mean of
C. Classifier absolute EMG signals. The existing feature information and
Their are several methods proposed by different researchers classification rate for different processed EMG signals with
to classify EMG signals [2, 3, 4, 5] based on some relevant each group is given in Table 1. It shows that raw EMG itself
methodology. A classifier should be devised so as to extract the gives higher classification rate than that of processed EMG
relevant features from the evaluated signals. Thus for pattern signals and vice-versa for existing feature information. Thus
classification, LDA technique in being used in our research. for further analysis, filtered EMG is used of pattern recognition
In addition to the robust property of LDA, this classifier is and classification of various active hand movements.
chosen based on its simple statistical approach which does not TABLE I. C LASSIFICATION RATE OF DIFFERENT EMG SIGNALS
require any parameter adjustment other then time sequence
Signal Feature information (%) Classification rate (%)
evaluation. Also the efficient real-time computational operation
RAW EMG 68.90 86.60
can be performed in LDA. The classification performance of
Filtered EMG 86.60 84.90
LDA is simple as compared to the other complex classification
Pre-amplified EMG 87.30 81.30
techniques of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and support
Mean Absolute EMG 88.70 80.06
vector machine (SVM).
Thus for a time-frequency tiling pattern, the specific feature While classifying different forms of wrist-hand movements,
can be classified using Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). the classification rate for various phase movements was exam-
The fixed time sampling is structured for evaluating threshold ined about (80-86)% with various processed EMG signal for
peak voltage at that instance for that specific signal feature. different phase movements as shown in fig. 8. The confusion
Thus the threshold T for EMG pattern can be calculated as, matrix for different phase classification rate based on wrist-
L L hand movements activity is given in Table 2. The results shows
30 X 5X
imax {xi } > | xi | then T = | xi | (9)
L i=1 L i=1 TABLE II. C LASSIFICATION RATE OF DIFFERENT MUSCLE ACTIVITY

Muscle Activity Rest (%) Slow (%) Fast (%)

else T = imax {xi }/5
Rest 100 0 0
For every action, the MAUP carries out the respective move- Slow (10-11) (82-84) 0
ment, where the threshold peak is being generated. Since, the Fast 0 (2-4) (83-86)
Muscle strength differs from person to person, the statistical
features of the signal is analysed by providing the range of
consecutive threshold voltage levels for the evaluated EMG that the LDA classifier gives 100% correct classification for
signal as shown in Fig. 6. The range of consecutive threshold rest condition whereas (82-86)% for slow and fast movements.
voltages is set by analysing the different operators signal The classification rate for different hand movement varies
samples for prescribed movement. After examining the range according to the muscle strength and applied contraction force.
Thus the classification results for five types of wrist-hand
movements for four different subjects is shown in Fig. 7.

Fig. 7. Classification rate of different subjects for various hand movements

Fig. 6. Feature Classification for threshold peak detection with LDA

Fig. 8. EMG signals for various phase movements
To acquire the EMG signal we used two surface electrodes
with noise amputations which reduces the complexity of the
circuitry with efficient signal feature and classification anal-
ysis. The data of each subject is used to create different set
of threshold levels for classifying the appropriate pattern of
different user active hand movements. The procedure for signal
acquisition and pattern classification is as following.
two surface electrodes where applied on the forearm
and a third on the wrist as reference to the EMG
capturing circuit;
each of the 5 movements are sequentially repeated 10
times and the EMG signal are recorded for first 200
ms each;
each set of 10 movements constitutes a sequence,
which is stored in a feature threshold database;
so 50 data sets of EMG signals are obtained from
which a total of 500 data sets for overall database is
created;
data in each pattern are averaged and the 10 move-
ments are separated and individually evaluated and
stored accordingly;
as the pattern information contained in the first 200
ms of a movement, so the filter is set accordingly so
as to sustain the pattern for 200ms time duration only;
the threshold for every peak value is set for classifi-
cation of different pattern with the varying range.
Data have been acquired twice from each person with a
different position of the electrodes: lower (CD) or higher (CP)
on the forearm so as to extract the perfect feature for different
movements. The frequency of acquisition signal is examined
about (20-500)Hz. Thus, the experimental results also prove
that appropriate statistical features can be used in various
classifying muscle activities which can be easily evaluated and
advantageous in real time applications mainly for prosthesis
robotic applications.
The main factors that influence the EMG signal are bi-
ological and technical factors. The biological factors such
as physiological variability, age, sex, skeletal morphology,
psychological factors, skin thickness, body temperature and
weight. Technical factors consist of electrode placement, posi-
tion and inter-electrode distance with statistical methodology.
Due to such factors, the signal pattern obtained from each
subject with respect to the respective muscle activities which
varies in frequency from 20-500Hz with every experimental
evaluation.
VI. C ONCLUSION
EMG signal is obtained via the differentiation of individual
action potentials generated by irregular discharges of active
motor units in muscle fibers. It contains rich information that
can make myoelectric control a pioneer solution for prosthesis
application and human-assisting robots. The level of activity
of muscles in contraction is the most important factor to
be recognized in EMG classification. Therefore, we applied
different statistical analysis to the processed EMG signal which
extracts the feature for prosthesis hand movements; also to
estimate the signal pattern, variance, MAV and length of signal
results in significant performance followed by Linear analysis
for feature classification.
The accomplishments research in this paper have led to
the modified strategies for the improvement of EMG signal
acquisition and classification. Since hand motions originates
from the concurrent activation of several small and large
forearm muscles, thus collecting data from different locality on
the skin surface which involves more muscles for classification.
Thus, improves the number of functions that a system can
manipulate efficiently. It also improves accuracy, by providing
more discriminative patterns for input signals for each hand
motion by various subjects examined threshold database. For
development of the simplex EMG signal acquisition system,
we has considered minimum 2 numbers of forearm muscles
in the anterior an posterior forearm from which the efficient
signal classification rate of about (80-86)% is evaluated.
R EFERENCES
[1] Ali Salman, Javaid Iqbal, Umer Izhar, Optimized Circuit for EMG
Signal Processing, IEEE Trans, Vol. 12, No. 7, 2012.
[2] A. B. Ajiboye, R. F. Weir A Heuristic Fuzzy Logic Approch to EMG
Pattern Recognition for Multifunctional Prosthesis Control, IEEE Trans
NSR 13, No. 3, Sep-2005.
[3] B. Crawford, K. Miller, P. Shenoy and R. Rao, Real-time classification
of electromyographic signals for robotic control, Proc 20th AAAI, pp.
523-528, 2005.
[4] Bitzer S, van der Smagt P, Learning EMG control of a robotic
hand: towards active prostheses, In Proceedings of ICRA, International
Conference on Robotics and Automation, Orlando, pp. 2819- 2823, 2006.
[5] Claudio Castellini, Patrick van der Smagt, Surface EMG in advanced
hand prosthetics, Springer (Biological cybernetics), Vol. 100, pp. 35-47,
Sep-2009 .
[6] Ekvall S, Kragi D Grasp recognition for programming by demonstra-
tion, In Proceedings of ICRA, International Conference on Robotics and
Automation, Barcelona, 2008
[7] Giuseppina Ginia, Matteo Arvettia, Acquisition and analysis of EMG
signals to recognize multiple hand movements for prosthetic applica-
tions, ABB (IOS Press), Vol. 9, pp. 145-155, July-2012.
[8] J. Perry, C. Schmidt Easterday, D. J. Antonelli Surface versus intramus-
cular electrodes for electromyography of superficial and deep muscles,
Physics Theory, Vol. 61, pp 7-15, 1981.
[9] J. C. K. Lai, M. P. Schoen, A. Perez Gracia, D. S. Naidu, S. W. Leung,
Prosthetic devices: challenges and implications of robotic implants
and biological interfaces, Proc in Mechanical Part for Engineering in
Medicine, Vol. 2, pp. 173-183, 2007.
[10] M. B. I. Reaz, M. S. Hussain and F. Mohd-Yasin, Techniques of EMG
signal analysis: detection, processing, classification and applications,
Biomedical Proc Online, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 11-35, 2006.
[11] Henry Gray, Anatomy of the Human Body, Bartebly.com books on
line, 1918