Feasibility of a Portable, Wearable, High-Density Surface EMG Device for Detecting Functional Hand-Object Interactions

This research aimed to assess the feasibility of employing the Smart Sleeve, a portable and wearable high-density surface electromyography (HDsEMG) device, for the detection of functional hand-object interactions in a group of healthy volunteers. The Smart Sleeve consisted of 32 electrodes that were securely wrapped around the forearm, while the surface electromyography (sEMG) signals were captured using a portable wireless amplifier. To automatically identify hand-object interactions, a machine-learning approach was employed, based on temporal and spectral EMG features extracted from sliding windows of 1-second length. The proposed method achieved an F1-score of 71% when detecting hand-object interactions on an independent test set. The results of this study highlight the potential application of the proposed method for evaluating upper extremity function. In the future, the integration of first-person vision and wrist-worn accelerometers could provide additional insights into neurological recovery processes in individuals with neurological impairments who live in the community.