A two-dimensional matrix image based feature extraction method for classification of sEMG: A comparative analysis based on SVM, KNN and RBF-NN

BACKGROUND: The computer mouse is an important human-computer interaction device. But patients with physical finger disability are unable to operate this device. Surface EMG (sEMG) can be monitored by electrodes on the skin surface and is a reflection of the neuromuscular activities. Therefore, we can control limbs auxiliary equipment by utilizing sEMG classification in order to help the physically disabled patients to operate the mouse. OBJECTIVE: To develop a new a method to extract sEMG generated by finger motion and apply novel features to classify sEMG. METHODS: A window-based data acquisition method was presented to extract signal samples from sEMG electordes. Afterwards, a two-dimensional matrix image based feature extraction method, which differs from the classical methods based on time domain or frequency domain, was employed to transform signal samples to feature maps used for classification. In the experiments, sEMG data samples produced by the index and middle fingers at the click of a mouse button were separately acquired. Then, characteristics of the samples were analyzed to generate a feature map for each sample. Finally, the machine learning classification algorithms (SVM, KNN, RBF-NN) were employed to classify these feature maps on a GPU. RESULTS: The study demonstrated that all classifiers can identify and classify sEMG samples effectively. In particular, the accuracy of the SVM classifier reached up to 100%. CONCLUSIONS: The signal separation method is a convenient, efficient and quick method, which can effectively extract the sEMG samples produced by fingers. In addition, unlike the classical methods, the new method enables to extract features by enlarging sample signals' energy appropriately. The classical machine learning classifiers all performed well by using these features.