Processing of real-time surface electromyography signals during knee movements of rehabilitation participants

Abstract

In this work, we present a knee rehabilitation system focusing on the processing of surface electromyography (sEMG) signals measured from the vastus lateralis (VL) and vastus medialis (VM) muscles of rehabilitation participants. A two-channel electromyography (EMG) device and the NI-myRIO embedded device are used to collect real-time sEMG signals in accordance with pre-designed rehabilitation programs. The novelty and contribution of this work is that we develop an sEMG processing function where real-time sEMG data are automatically processed and sEMG results of both VL and VM in terms of root mean square value (RMS), different RMS levels of VL and VM, and maximum RMS for each round of knee movements are provided. The results here indicate how well the rehabilitation users can move their knees during rehabilitation, referring to knee and muscle performances. Experimental results from healthy participants show that we can automatically and efficiently collect and monitor rehabilitation results, allowing rehabilitation participants to know how their knees performed during testing and medical experts to evaluate and design treatment.