Optimal automatic detection of muscle activation intervals

Usman Rashid, Imran Khan Niazi, Nada Signal, Dario Farina, Denise Taylor

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

20 Citations (Scopus)
57 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

A significant challenge in surface electromyography (sEMG) is the accurate identification of onsets and offsets of muscle activations. Manual labelling and automatic detection are currently used with varying degrees of reliability, accuracy and time efficiency. Automatic methods still require significant manual input to set the optimal parameters for the detection algorithm. These parameters usually need to be adjusted for each individual, muscle and movement task. We propose a method to automatically identify optimal detection parameters in a minimally supervised way. The proposed method solves an optimisation problem that only requires as input the number of activation bursts in the sEMG in a given time interval. This approach was tested on an extended version of the widely adopted double thresholding algorithm, although the optimisation could be applied to any detection algorithm. sEMG data from 22 healthy participants performing a single (ankle dorsiflexion) and a multi-joint (step on/off) task were used for evaluation. Detection rate, concordance, F1 score as an average of sensitivity and precision, degree of over detection, and degree of under detection were used as performance metrices. The proposed method improved the performance of the double thresholding algorithm in multi-joint movement and had the same performance in single joint movement with respect to the performance of the double thresholding algorithm with task specific global parameters. Moreover, the proposed method was robust when an error of up to ±10% was introduced in the number of activation bursts in the optimisation phase regardless of the movement. In conclusion, our optimised method has improved the automation of a sEMG detection algorithm which may reduce the time burden associated with current sEMG processing.

Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Electromyography & Kinesiology
Volume48
Pages (from-to)103-111
Number of pages9
ISSN1050-6411
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2019

Keywords

  • Concordance
  • Extended double thresholding algorithm
  • Heuristic optimisation
  • Offset detection
  • Onset detection
  • Particle swarm optimisation
  • Surface electromyography (sEMG)

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Optimal automatic detection of muscle activation intervals'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this