Design of a wireless sEMG signal and fingers trajectory acquisition experimental platform for bionic hands applications
Millions of people worldwide suffer from the absence of a limb. The absence of a hand directly affects mobility in daily life. Even with today's advanced robotic prostheses, there is still a need for hands-free human-machine interfaces that are able to explore the natural simultaneous, proportional, and independent movement of the fingers. In this study, the development of an experimental platform for sEMG acquisition and finger trajectory tracking in 3D space is proposed. A thorough literature review was conducted to understand the signals and techniques currently used to develop an experimental platform capable of investigating natural finger motion for prosthetic hands. The resulting sEMG data were recorded from a single healthy individual over two simultaneous channels, each with a high sampling frequency of 20 kHz and a noise level below 5 uV. The finger trajectory tracking system provided accurate angular and acceleration displacements using IMU sensors placed over the ends of each finger, resulting in an accurate trajectory of the fingers in 3D space. The output data matched the design specifications, but most importantly, the time and time-frequency results matched the literature. The proposed finger trajectory tracking system proved to be unique in the literature and provided a simple form of tracking finger trajectories in 3D space that allowed the study of simultaneous, proportional, and independent motions. The developed experiment also proved to be a powerful tool for research and educational purposes.