Skip to main content
Log in

EMG Based Control of Transhumeral Prosthesis Using Machine Learning Algorithms

  • Regular Papers
  • Intelligent Control and Applications
  • Published:
International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This research presents work on control of a prosthetic arm using surface electromyography (sEMG) signals acquired from triceps and biceps of fifteen healthy and four amputated subjects. Myo armband was used to acquire sEMG signals corresponding to four different arm motions: elbow extension, elbow flexion, wrist pronation, and wrist supination. Ten time-domain features were extracted and considered for classification to recognize the four-arm motions. These features and their various combinations were used to train four different classifiers, in both offline and real-time settings. It was found that the combination of signal mean and waveform length as a feature and k-nearest neighbors as classifier performed significantly better (p < 0.05) than all other combinations in both offline and real-time settings. The offline accuracies of 95.8% and 68.1% and real-time accuracies of 91.9% and 60.1% were obtained for healthy and amputated subjects, respectively. Results obtained using the presented scheme successfully demonstrate that using suitable features and classifier, classification accuracies can be significantly improved for transhumeral prosthesis, thereby, providing better, wearable and non-invasive control of prostheses using sEMG signals.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. A. H. Al-Timemy, R. N. Khushaba, G. Bugmann, and J. Escudero, “Improving the performance against force variation of EMG controlled multifunctional upper-limb prostheses for transradial amputees,” IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, vol. 24, no. 6, pp. 650–661, 2016.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. T. Lenzi, J. Lipsey, and J. W. Sensinger, “The RIC arm-a small anthropomorphic transhumeral prosthesis,” IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, vol. 21, no. 6, pp. 2660–2671, 2016.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. G. Gaudet, M. Raison, and S. Achiche, “Classification of upper limb phantom movements in transhumeral amputees using electromyographic and kinematic features,” Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, vol. 68, pp. 153–164, 2018.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. J.-W. Lee and G.-K. Lee, “Gait angle prediction for lower limb orthotics and prostheses using an EMG signal and neural networks,” International Journal of Control, Automation, and Systems, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 152–158, 2005.

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  5. N. Naseer and K.-S. Hong, “Classification of functional near-infrared spectroscopy signals corresponding to the right-and left-wrist motor imagery for development of a brain-computer interface,” Neuroscience letters, vol. 553, pp. 84–89, 2013.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. N. Naseer, K.-S. Hong, M. R. Bhutta, and M. J. Khan, “Improving classification accuracy of covert yes/no response decoding using support vector machines: An fNIRS study,” Proc. of International Conference on Robotics and Emerging Allied Technologies in Engineering (iCREATE), IEEE, pp. 6–9, 2014.

  7. K. Li, Y. Fang, Y. Zhou, and H. Liu, “Non-invasive stimulation-based tactile sensation for upper-extremity prosthesis: A review,” IEEE Sensors Journal, vol. 17, no. 9, pp. 2625–2635, 2017.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. M. Jeong, H. Woo, and K. Kong, “A study on weight support and balance control method for assisting squat movement with a wearable robot, angel-suit,” International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 114–123, 2020.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. O. W. Samuel, M. G. Asogbon, Y. Geng, A. H. Al-Timemy, S. Pirbhlal, N. Ji, S. Chen, P. Feng, and G. Li, “Intelligent EMG pattern recognition control method for upper-limb multifunctional prostheses: Advances, current challenges, and future prospects,” IEEE Access, vol. 7, pp. 10150–10165, 2019.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. L. J. Hargrove, K. Englehart, and B. Hudgins, “A comparison of surface and intramuscular myoelectric signal classification,” IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, vol. 54, no. 5, pp. 847–853, 2007.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. J. K. Lee, T. H. Jeon, and W. C. Jung, “Constraint-augmented Kalman filter for magnetometer-free 3D joint angle determination,” International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems, vol. 18, no. 11, pp. 2929–2942, 2020.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. G. Yang, J. Deng, G. Pang, H. Zhang, J. Li, B. Deng, Z. Pang, J. Xu, M. Jiang, P. Liljeberg, H. Xie, and H. Yang, “An IoT-enabled stroke rehabilitation system based on smart wearable armband and machine learning,” IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine, vol. 6, pp. 1–10, 2018.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Y. Gu, D. Yang, Q. Huang, W. Yang, and H. Liu, “Robust EMG pattern recognition in the presence of confounding factors: Features, classifiers and adaptive learning,” Expert Systems with Applications, vol. 96, pp. 208–217, 2018.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. A. Phinyomark, C. Limsakul, and P. Phukpattaranont, “A novel feature extraction for robust EMG pattern recognition,” arXiv preprint, arXiv:0912.3973, 2009.

  15. A. J. Young, L. H. Smith, E. J. Rouse, and L. J. Hargrove, “Classification of simultaneous movements using surface EMG pattern recognition,” IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, vol. 60, no. 5, pp. 1250–1258, 2013.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. E. Scheme and K. Englehart, “Electromyogram pattern recognition for control of powered upper-limb prostheses: state of the art and challenges for clinical use,” Journal of Rehabilitation Research & Development, vol. 48, no. 6, 2011.

  17. D. A. Bennett, J. E. Mitchell, D. Truex, and M. Goldfarb, “Design of a myoelectric transhumeral prosthesis,” IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 1868–1879, 2016.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. T. R. Farrell, “A comparison of the effects of electrode implantation and targeting on pattern classification accuracy for prosthesis control,” IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, vol. 55, no. 9, pp. 2198–2211, 2008.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. C. L. Pulliam, J. M. Lambrecht, and R. F. Kirsch, “EMG-based neural network control of transhumeral prostheses,” Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development, vol. 48, no. 6, p. 739, 2011.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. P. F. Pasquina, M. Evangelista, A. J. Caravalho, J. Lockhart, S. Griffin, G. Nanos, P. McKey, M. Hansen, D. Ipsen, J. Vandersea, J. Butkus, M. Miller, I. Murphy, and D. Hankin, “First-in-man demonstration of a fully implanted myoelectric sensors system to control an advanced electromechanical prosthetic hand,” Journal of Neuroscience Methods, vol. 244, pp. 85–93, 2015.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. P. Geethanjali, “Myoelectric control of prosthetic hands: State-of-the-art review,” Medical Devices (Auckland), vol. 9, p. 247–255, 2016.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. M. S. Fifer, H. Hotson, B. A. Wester, D. P. McMullen, Y. Wang, M. S. Johannes, K. D. Katyal, J. B. Helder, M. P. Para, R. J. Vogelstein, W. S. Anderson, N. V. Thakor, and N. E. Crone, “Simultaneous neural control of simple reaching and grasping with the modular prosthetic limb using intracranial EEG,” IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 695–705, 2014.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. D. Bandara, J. Arata, and K. Kiguchi, “Towards control of a transhumeral prosthesis with EEG signals,” Bioengineering, vol. 5, no. 2, p. 26, 2018.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. T. Sittiwanchai, I. Nakayama, S. Inoue, and J. Kobayashi, “Transhumeral prosthesis prototype with 3D printing and sEMG-based elbow joint control method,” Proceedings of the International Conference on Advanced Mechatronic Systems, IEEE, pp. 227–231, 2014.

  25. M. E. Benalcázar, A. G. Jaramillo, A. Zea, A. Páez, and V. H. Andaluz, “Hand gesture recognition using machine learning and the Myo armband,” Proc. of 25th European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO), IEEE, pp. 1040–1044, 2017.

  26. N. Y. Sattar, U. A. Syed, S. Muhammad, and Z. Kausar, “Real-time EMG signal processing with implementation of PID control for upper-limb prosthesis,” Proc. of IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM), IEEE, pp. 120–125, 2019.

  27. U. A. Syed, Z. Kausar, and N. Y. Sattar, “Control of a prosthetic arm using fNIRS, a neural-machine interface,” Data Acquisition-Recent Advances and Applications in Biomedical Engineering: IntechOpen, 2020.

  28. F. Liu, Z. Gao, C. Yang, and R. Ma, “Extended Kalman filters for continuous-time nonlinear fractional-order systems involving correlated and uncorrelated process and measurement noises,” International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems, vol. 18, pp. 2229–2241, 2020.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. M. Rahmani and M. H. Rahman, “Adaptive neural network fast fractional sliding mode control of a 7-DoF exoskeleton robot,” International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 124–133, 2020.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. X. Zhang, X. Wang, B. Wang, T. Sugi, and M. Nakamura, “Meal assistance system operated by electromyogram (EMG) signals: Movement onset detection with adaptive threshold,” International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 392–397, 2010.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. B. Wang, Z. Li, W. Ye, and Q. Xie, “Development of human-machine interface for teleoperation of a mobile manipulator,” International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems, vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 1225–1231, 2012.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. K.-S. Hong and M. J. Khan, “Hybrid brain-computer interface techniques for improved classification accuracy and increased number of commands: A review,” Frontiers in Neurorobotics, vol. 11, p. 35, 2017.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. K.-S. Hong, N. Naseer, and Y.-H. Kim, “Classification of prefrontal and motor cortex signals for three-class fNIRS-BCI,” Neuroscience Letters, vol. 587, pp. 87–92, 2015.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. S. Belkacem, F. Naceri, and R. Abdessemed, “Improvement in DTC-SVM of AC drives using a new robust adaptive control algorithm,” International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 267–275, 2011.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. S. S. Esfahlani, B. Muresan, A. Sanaei, and G. Wilson, “Validity of the Kinect and Myo armband in a serious game for assessing upper limb movement,” Entertainment Computing, vol. 27, p. 150–156, 2018.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. K. T. Reilly, C. Mercier, M. H. Schieber, and A. Sirigu, “Persistent hand motor commands in the amputees’ brain,” Brain, vol. 129, no. 8, pp. 2211–2223, 2006.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. T. A. Kuiken, G. Li, B. A. Lock, R. D. Lipschutz, L. A. Miller, K. A. Stubblefield, and K. B. Englehart, “Targeted muscle reinnervation for real-time myoelectric control of multifunction artificial arms,” JAMA, vol. 301, no. 6, pp. 619–628, 2009.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. O. Barron, M. Raison, G. Gaudet, and S. Achiche, “Recurrent neural network for electromyographic gesture recognition in transhumeral amputees,” Applied Soft Computing, vol. 96, 106616, 2020.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. N. Jarrassé, E. de Montalivet, F. Richer, C. Nicol, A. Touillet, N. Martinet, J. Paysant, and J. B. de Graaf, “Phantommobility-based prosthesis control in transhumeral amputees without surgical reinnervation: A preliminary study,” Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, vol. 6, 2018.

  40. M. Rahmani, M. H. Rahman, and J. Ghommam, “A 7-DoF upper limb exoskeleton robot control using a new robust hybrid controller,” International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 986–994, 2019.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Neelum Yousaf Sattar.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Neelum Yousaf Sattar is pursuing her Ph.D. in mechatronics engineering. She received her M.S. degree in mechatronics engineering from Air University in 2015. Her research interests include Control theory and application, robotics and automation systems and bio-mechatronics.

Zareena Kausar received her Ph.D. degree in engineering from University of Auckland in 2013. Her research interests include dynamics modeling of mechatronics systems, non-linear control, biomechatronics, robotics, mechatronics system design.

Syed Ali Usama received his M.S. degree in mechatronics from the Air University, Islamabad, Pakistan in 2020. He is currently a Lab Engineer in teh Department of Mechatronics and Biomedical Engineering, Air University. His research areas include human-machine interface, assistive robotics, intelligent control, artificial intelligence, biomechatronic and neuroscience.

Umer Farooq has received his M.S. degree in computer engineering from LUMS. Currently he is working as a Lecturer in the Department of Mechatronics Engineering at Air University since 2013 with a keen interest in Industrial/Commercial Problem Solving & Research opportunities, and aspires to bridge the gap between Academia & Industry.

Umar Shahbaz Khan completed his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from University of Liverpool, UK in 2010. Currently he is working as an Assistant professor at the Department of Mechatronics Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology and his research interests include electrical systems manufacturing. He is also the project director of National Centre of Robotics and Automation.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Sattar, N.Y., Kausar, Z., Usama, S.A. et al. EMG Based Control of Transhumeral Prosthesis Using Machine Learning Algorithms. Int. J. Control Autom. Syst. 19, 3522–3532 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-019-1058-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-019-1058-5

Keywords

Navigation