Radiomyography — Feasibility study

Myography aims to detect muscular activity. This paper presents the concept of a novel myographic method that fundamentally differs from standard methods that aim to detect a signal produced by muscle contraction. Our method is based on the measurement of muscle thickness by the means electromagnetic reflectometry. For a layered medium, the problem is shown to be simplified to a detection of phase change of the reflection coefficient. A feasibility study shows that a change of thickness of the muscle tissue causes sufficient change of the phase of reflection coefficient to be detectable by commercial phase detectors or phase locked loops. Unlike conventional methods, this paves the way to non-invasive myography for deep core muscles, which would be useful for back pain treatment. Furthermore, the issues of non-ideal detectors are discussed and an algorithm removing the systematic error is introduced.