Investigation on Upper Limb’s Muscle Utilizing EMG Signal

Neurorehabilitation aims to aid the recovery/rehabilitation of neurological patients following strokes, spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries as well as other neurological diseases. The utilization of a rehabilitative robot can offer a repetitive and intensive rehabilitation training which helps improve the recovery rate and introduce a channel for patients to train independently or with minimal supervision. The future system will leverage on the utilization of EMG signal to drive the control system controlling the rehabilitative robot. Hence, it is necessary to investigate the influence of each muscle to the upper extremity’s movement. This paper presents the comprehensive observation on how 8 different muscles contribute to the flexion extension and abduction adduction movement of the upper limb. These muscles are biceps, triceps, deltoid, latissimus dorsi, brachioradialis, brachialis, flexor carpi radialis and flexor carpi ulnaris. The impact of each muscle to the upper limb’s movement will help in determining the EMG-force/torque relationship.