Design and Development of Low-Cost EMG Amplifier for Assistive Technology

The importance of EMG signal is very widespread in many areas of biomedical application due to its distinct output characteristics. However, the small amplitude and noise vulnerability nature of EMG signal necessitates amplification and filtering through properly designed electronic circuitry. So far, a suitable design of an EMG amplifier with an optimum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and biosafety feature is a challenging issue. Besides, the high cost of a medical grade bioelectric amplifier also limits the open source approach to clinical research and development. Our work delineates a simple, affordable, but efficient method to design an EMG amplifier with a clinical safety feature of optical isolation compared to other standard bio amplifiers. In addition, the research also focuses on the development of an efficient signal processing algorithm for the post processing of the bio-signals which can be easily implemented into any embedded system dedicated for human-computer interaction.