V.F. Bez’’yazychnyi1, E.A. Yeliseichev2, P.S. Vorobyev3, V.V. Mikhailov4, A.A. Tyaptin5

1,3 Rybinsk State Aviation Technical University (Rybinsk, Russia)

2,4 JSC «Rybinsk Instrument Making Plant» (Rybinsk, Russia)

5 «MIFRM», Ltd (Medical Center «Motus») (Yaroslavl, Russia)

Electromyography is one of the main ways to monitor human muscular activity. Recorded EMG signals can be used to control rehabilitation and diagnostic tools in healthcare and to diagnose human neuromuscular system disabilities. Recently, there is huge developing in usage of EMG signals for human-machine interaction. For example, controlling of bionic prosthesis. The aim of this article is to review existing ways of reading EMG signals for control of bionic prosthesis. To find the information authors used three online resources: elibrary, ResearchGate and Google Scholar. Keywords employed in research inclided «bionic prosthesis», «EMG system», «EMG sensor», «muscle activity», «surface electrodes», «invasive electrodes». A total of 30 papers were selected for full-text assessment. All existing methods of reading EMG signals were divided into two groups: invasive and noninvasive. In this article authors described four invasive methods, such as: regeneretative sensors, extraneural sensors, intraneural sensors and targeted muscle reinnervation and four noninvasive methods: «wet» contact sensors, dry contact sensors, dry noncontact sensors and textile sensors. The application of invasive methods is considered to be quite dangerous for human health and can lead to degeneration of human nerve tissues. However, targeted muscle reinnervation has found its place in prosthetics. The possibility of applying regenerative, extraneural and intraneural sensors in practice requires further research. Noninvasive methods are less dangerous. But they do not allow to determine the location of the EMG signal with the same accuracy. The most popular sensors in prosthetics are dry contact sensors. They do not require usage of special conductive gel, unlike «wet» contact sensors. But dry contact sensors require further research to determine the optimal design of these sensors, namely the distance between the electrodes and size of electrodes. Noncontact and textile sensors can be perspective ways to read EMG signal, their disadvantage is that the quality of the signal recorded with these sensors is significantly lower than that of contact sensors. However, textile electrodes are actively being used in sport fields. Thus, currently dry contact electrodes are the best way to record EMG signal. In the future authors are planning to continue work on determining the optimal design of dry contact sensors.

Bez’’yazychnyi V.F., Yeliseichev E.A., Vorobyev P.S., Mikhailov V.V., Tyaptin A.A. Review of ways of reading EMG signals in the forearm area for controlling of bionic upper limb prostheses. Biomedicine Radioengineering. 2023. V. 26. № 1. Р. 35-44. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18127/j15604136-202301-04 (In Russian).

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