Single-channel surface electromyography (sEMG) based control of a multi-functional prosthetic hand

Abstract

Patients suffering from upper limb amputation experience a significant reduction in their ability to perform various tasks. The currently available myoelectric prostheses seek to reinstate the lost abilities of the amputees. However, most users abandon their devices due to high cost, large size, heavy weight, complexity, and limited functional control. This paper presents a multifunctional prosthetic hand that can perform six hand activities deploying a single-channel surface electromyography (sEMG) sensor. EMG signals for fifteen subjects (five amputees and ten intact) were acquired for six contraction levels of forearm muscles using the designed sensor. These levels were further classified to recognize six predefined hand gestures by a fuzzy logic classifier. The proposed system showed an excellent success (> 95%) and other performance parameters above 96%. The intended classification-based control scheme was further realized in real-time to achieve six grip patterns for the developed prosthetic prototype. The hand was tested on five subjects (two amputees and three intact) showed a percentage of success above 91% for accomplishing the dexterous grasping operations. The proposed approach is modest, efficient, and provides a low-cost solution to amputees with multiple degrees of freedom with a single channel EMG system.

Keywords:

• Single-channel surface electromyography (sEMG)
• prosthetic hand
• fuzzy logic classifier
• degrees of freedom
• grip patterns

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Department of Science and Technology, Government of India for funding this project.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

Informed consent

Before conducting these experiments, ethical approval was obtained from the Ethical Committee, Institute of Medical Sciences, BHU, Varanasi, India. Written consent was obtained from each subject who participated in this study. In addition, informed consent was taken from the parents of minor participants.