Online calibration of the EMG to force relationship

Abstract

In this paper we present a method to calibrate the surface EMG signal-to-force-relationship online. For this, a simple biomechanical model composed of bones and muscles is used. The calibration is based on an online optimization algorithm where the error between the movement of the human and the movement computed with the biomechanical model is minimized. The proposed method is part of a control system for an exoskeleton robot that should aid the wearer in everyday-life situations like walking, standing up and sitting down. In contrast to existing methods for the calculation of the EMG signal-to-force-relationship, we are not interested in the exact force values of every single muscle, but our model groups some muscles together and uses the EMG signal of one of those muscles as a representative for the group to simplify calculations. The performance of the presented method was investigated on the leg movement in sagittal plane without contact to the environment.