Real-time performance of textile electrodes in electromyogram pattern-recognition based prosthesis control

Abstract

Textile electrode is flexible, folding, washable and biocompatible with skin. With these advantages, the textile electrodes should be an ideal alternative for electromyogram (EMG) recordings in clinical applications. In this study, a textile electrode system was used for EMG signal recordings and its usability and performance in classifying different arm and hand movements were evaluated through real-time pattern recognition control of virtual myoelectric arm. Our results showed that the offline average classification accuracy over seven able-bodied subjects for all ten movements was 91.81 %, compared to 96.54% for six basic movements. The real-time performance in operating a virtual arm was quantified with three measures: selection time, completion time, and completion time. Averagely, the seven subjects achieved a motion selection time of approximately 0.36 s, and a completion time of less than 2 s, and a completion rate of around 82%. These pilot results suggest that the textile electrodes could work well in real-time control of multifunctional myoelectric prosthesis.

Systematic review of textile-based electrodes for long-term and continuous surface electromyography recording

“…Textiles as support materials -'add on' Mechanical attachment (often inorganic) Sleeves 38,39 Taping Socks 63 Temporary fixture (often for testing) Electrodes fixed by elastic band 59,65 Cut and sew Jogging 68,[72][73][74] Armband/sleeves/elastic band [47][48][49]56,57,61,64,67,70,76,77,79 Integrated onto Coating Knitted fabric straps 55 Stencil printing Armband/sleeves 58,60 Integrated into Embroidery/sewing Jogging Figure 6. Wearable system integration levels.…”

“…The use of textile-based or flexible electrodes has been explored as an alternative to common metal electrodes. 48,49,56 However, the signal quality and the motion artefacts generated by the relative displacement need to be addressed, which require the development of novel materials and textile structures, and potentially the improvement of control algorithms.…”

Design of a Smart Garment for Cycling

“…Several textile materials and techniques have been used in order to produce textile electrodes. Some examples include knitting [1,2], weaving [3,4], and embroidery [5], using conductive yarns; printing with conductive ink [6], coating with conductive rubber [7].…”

Towards EMG control interface for smart garments

“…The passive metal surface sensors and the textile electrodes, if used in a pattern recognition system, allow to reach almost the same performance in terms of classification accuracy, like in [13]. There are also some recent works [25] that evaluates the real-time performance of an EMG hand gestures recognition system based on textile electrodes. The system drives a virtual arm, reaching accuracy of the recognition around 93% and response time about 300ms.…”