An Investigation into Thumb Rotation Using High Density Surface Electromyography of Extrinsic Hand Muscles

Improving our understanding of mechanisms driving thumb rotation could potentially advance the design of current upper limb prosthesis to incorporate powered thumb control increasing the dexterity of the device. This study investigates thumb rotation using high density surface electromyography (HD-sEMG) of extrinsic hand muscles. An apparatus was designed and developed to test thumb rotation. Relevant data were acquired during isometric voluntary contractions with a 20-40% of maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) performed by 7 healthy right-handed volunteers. Data were processed and analyzed. Analysis showed that, thumb position could be extracted using features extracted from the HD-sEMG data recorded with high statistical significance.