Intersected EMG Heatmaps and Deep Learning Based Gesture Recognition

Hand gesture recognition in myoelectric based prosthetic devices is a key challenge to offering effective solutions to hand/lower arm amputees. A novel hand gesture recognition methodology that employs the difference of EMG energy heatmaps as the input of a specific designed deep learning neural network is presented. Experimental results using data from real amputees indicate that the proposed design achieves 94.31% as average accuracy with best accuracy rate of 98.96%. A comparison of experimental results between the proposed novel hand gesture recognition methodology and other similar approaches indicates the superior effectiveness of the new design.