EMG-based motion discrimination using a novel recurrent neural network

This paper presents a pattern discrimination method for electromyogram (EMG) signals for application in the field of prosthetic control. The method uses a novel recurrent neural network based on the hidden Markov model. This network includes recurrent connections, which enable modeling time series, such as EMG signals. Weight coefficients in the network can be learned using a well-known back-propagation through time algorithm. Pattern discrimination experiments were conducted to demonstrate the feasibility and performance of the proposed method. We were able to successfully discriminate forearm motions using the EMG signals, and achieved considerably high discrimination performance compared with other discrimination methods.