A USB based data acquisition system for EMG signal recording

In the present paper, we present the design of a USB-based data acquisition system to record Electromyogram signal (EMG). Three gelled Silver/Silver chloride (Ag/AgCl) electrodes were set on the upper layer of the skin surface (stratum corneum) in all the conducted experiments. The raw signal which is a low level voltage (μV to mV) is processed and filtered by a low-power consumption amphfier. The analog signal was digitized by an AN2131QC QC microcontroller kit based on the 8051 industrial core. The data were instantly sent to a laptop through a USB link. Then, some processing tools were built around MATLAB software and were applied to the data for temporal and frequenciel representation of the corresponding electromyogram signal.