Transmission of EMG and hand force signal through wireless communication

Abstract

Electromyography (EMG) and hand force measurement are widespread used to diagnose diseases which are associated with muscle contraction; or they can be used to investigate the muscle fatigue in clinical and biomedical researches. In this study, we are interested in developing an inexpensive designed circuit board using ATmega8 microcontroller to transmit the EMG signal and hand dynamometer signal from these two sensors to the personal computer through wireless technology. Through that, the user or doctor can observe the relationship between the EMG signal and hand force signal of the patients. With respect to ATmega8 microcontroller, we attempt to write code that can convert the analog signal to digital signal (ADC) and send data to computer wirelessly via Bluetooth. Eventually, one software written by Matlab language can display the real time measurement signal. Moreover, experiments were setup by five volunteers and from the results, a relationship between EMG and hand force signal is found out to demonstrate the EMG signal appeared before the muscle contraction. Also, the result can be exported to Excel file to save the data and see clearer the relationship between EMG and hand force signal.