A Wearable Co-located Neural-Mechanical Signal Sensing Device for Simultaneous Bimodal Muscular Activity Detection

The co-located and concurrent measurement of both muscular neural activity and muscular deformation is considered necessary in many applications, such as medical robotics, assistive exoskeletons and muscle function evaluations. Nevertheless, conventional muscle-related signal perception systems eith...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on biomedical engineering 2023-12, Vol.PP (12), p.1-11
Main Authors: Wang, Tiantong, Zhao, Yunbiao, Wang, Qining
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Automation
bimodal sensor
Deformation
Electrodes
Exoskeleton
Exoskeletons
flexible wearable sensor
Force
Human engineering
Human performance
iontronic sensor
Manufacturing engineering
Muscle contraction
Muscles
Muscular activity detection
Robot sensing systems
Robotics
Robots
Sensors
Signal to noise ratio
Skin
Substrates
surface electromyography (sEMG)
Walking
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Summary:The co-located and concurrent measurement of both muscular neural activity and muscular deformation is considered necessary in many applications, such as medical robotics, assistive exoskeletons and muscle function evaluations. Nevertheless, conventional muscle-related signal perception systems either detect only one of these modalities, or are made with rigid and bulky components that cannot provide conformal and flexible interface. Herein, a flexible, easy-to-fabricate, bimodal muscular activity sensing device, which collects neural and mechanical signal at the same muscle location, is reported. The sensing patch includes a screen-printed sEMG sensor, and a pressure-based muscular deformation sensor (PMD sensor) based on a highly sensitive, co-planar iontronic pressure sensing unit. Both sensors are integrated on a super-thin (25 μm) substrate. The sEMG sensor shows a high signal-to-noise ratio of 37.1 dB, and the PMD sensor sensor exhibits a high sensitivity of 70.9 kPa^{-1}. The responses of the sensor to three types of muscle activities (isotonic, isometric, and passive stretching) were analyzed and validated by ultrasound imaging. Bimodal signals during dynamic walking experiments with different level-ground walking speeds were also investigated. The application of the bimodal sensor was verified in gait phase estimation, and results show that the assembly of both modalities significantly reduce (p
ISSN:0018-9294
1558-2531
DOI:10.1109/TBME.2023.3287729