Prediction of distal arm joint angles from EMG and shoulder orientation for prosthesis control

Current state-of-the-art upper limb myoelectric prostheses are limited by only being able to control a single degree of freedom at a time. However, recent studies have separately shown that the joint angles corresponding to shoulder orientation and upper arm EMG can predict the joint angles corresponding to elbow flexion/extension and forearm pronation/ supination, which would allow for simultaneous control over both degrees of freedom. In this preliminary study, we show that the combination of both upper arm EMG and shoulder joint angles may predict the distal arm joint angles better than each set of inputs alone. Also, with the advent of surgical techniques like targeted muscle reinnervation, which allows a person with an amputation intuitive muscular control over his or her prosthetic, our results suggest that including a set of EMG electrodes around the forearm increases performance when compared to upper arm EMG and shoulder orientation. We used a Time-Delayed Adaptive Neural Network to predict distal arm joint angles. Our results show that our network´s root mean square error (RMSE) decreases and coefficient of determination (R²) increases when combining both shoulder orientation and EMG as inputs.