UNB Scholar Research Repository :: Browsing by Author "Scheme, Erik J."

Browsing by Author "Scheme, Erik J."

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A Multi-Variate Approach to Predicting Myoelectric Control Usability
(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2021) Nawfel, Jena L.; Englehart, Kevin B.; Scheme, Erik J.
Pattern recognition techniques leveraging the use of electromyography signals have become a popular approach to provide intuitive control of myoelectric devices. Performance of these control interfaces is commonly quantified using offline classification accuracy, despite studies having shown that this metric is a poor indicator of usability. Researchers have identified alternative offline metrics that better correlate with online performance; however, the relationship has yet to be fully defined in the literature. This has necessitated the continued trial-and-error-style online testing of algorithms developed using offline approaches. To bridge this information divide, we conducted an exploratory study where thirty-two different metrics from the offline training data were extracted. A correlation analysis and an ordinary least squares regression were implemented to investigate the relationship between the offline metrics and six aspects online use. The results indicate that the current offline standard, classification accuracy, is a poor indicator of usability and that other metrics may hold predictive power. The metrics identified in this work also may constitute more representative evaluation criteria when designing and reporting new control schemes. Furthermore, linear combinations of offline training metrics generate substantially more accurate predictions than using individual metrics. We found that the offline metric feature efficiency generated the best predictions for the usability metric throughput. A combination of two offline metrics (mean semi-principal axes and mean absolute value) significantly outperformed feature efficiency alone, with a 166% increase in the predicted R 2 value (i.e., VEcv). These findings suggest that combinations of metrics could provide a more robust framework for predicting usability.
A proportional control scheme for high density force myography
(IOP Publishing, 2018-08) Belyea, Alexander T.; Englehart, Kevin B.; Scheme, Erik J.
Objective. Force myography (FMG) has been shown to be a potentially higher accuracy alternative to electromyography for pattern recognition based prosthetic control. Classification accuracy, however, is just one factor that affects the usability of a control system. Others, like the ability to start and stop, to coordinate dynamic movements, and to control the velocity of the device through some proportional control scheme can be of equal importance. To impart effective fine control using FMG-based pattern recognition, it is important that a method of controlling the velocity of each motion be developed. Methods. In this work force myography data were collected from 14 able bodied participants and one amputee participant as they performed a set of wrist and hand motions. The offline proportional control performance of a standard mean signal amplitude approach and a proposed regression-based alternative was compared. The impact of providing feedback during training, as well as the use of constrained or unconstrained hand and wrist contractions, were also evaluated. Results. It is shown that the commonly used mean of rectified channel amplitudes approach commonly employed with electromyography does not translate to force myography. The proposed class-based regression proportional control approach is shown significantly outperform this standard approach (ρ < 0.001), yielding a R2 correlation coefficients of 0.837 and 0.830 for constrained and unconstrained forearm contractions, respectively for able bodied participants. No significant difference (ρ = 0.693) was found in R2 performance when feedback was provided during training or not. The amputee subject achieved a classification accuracy of 83.4% ± 3.47% demonstrating the ability to distinguish contractions well with FMG. In proportional control the amputee participant achieved an R2 of of 0.375 for regression based proportional control during unconstrained contractions. This is lower than the unconstrained case for able-bodied subjects for this particular amputee, possibly due to difficultly in visualizing contraction level modulation without feedback. This may be remedied in the use of a prosthetic limb that would provide real-time feedback in the form of device speed. Conclusion. A novel class-specific regression-based approach is proposed for multi-class control is described and shown to provide an effective means of providing FMG-based proportional control.
A symmetrical component feature extraction method for fault detection in induction machines
(IEEE, 2019-09) St-Onge, Xavier F.; Cameron, James; Saleh, Saleh; Scheme, Erik J.
Induction motors (IMs) are among the fully developed electromechanical technologies that are still in use today. Over the course of the last century, their structure, control, and operation have been undergone through several stages of development. Among stages of development, the automated control and continuous monitoring of IMs has benefited from the emergence of modern artificial intelligence (AI) methods. IM automation schemes have demonstrated the ability to provide machine fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) function. AI-based FDD methods in IMs have employed frequency-domain, time-frequency, and time-domain analyses as the basis of their feature extraction schemes. A promising feature extraction scheme is one that uses symmetrical components (SCs) in time-domain FDD systems. Current SC-based approaches, however, are limited in their generalizability to different fault classes, may require detailed machine models, and can suffer from computational limitations. In this paper, an improved feature extraction method that uses SCs for a pattern recognition based FDD scheme for three-phase (3φ) IMs will be presented. This novel feature extraction method will be implemented and verified experimentally to demonstrate high classification performance, increased generalizability, and low computational cost.
Analyzing the impact of class transitions on the design of pattern recognition-based myoelectric control schemes
(Elsevier, 2022-01) Raghu, Shriram Tallam Puranam; MacIsaac, Dawn T.; Scheme, Erik J.
Despite continued efforts to improve classification accuracy, it has been reported that offline accuracy is a poor indicator of the usability of pattern recognition-based myoelectric control. One potential source of this disparity is the existence of transitions between contraction classes that happen during regular use and are reported to be problematic for pattern recognition systems. Nevertheless, these transitions are often ignored or undefined during both the training and testing processes. In this work, we propose a set of metrics for analyzing the transitions that occur during the voluntary changes between contraction classes during continuous control. These metrics quantify the common types of errors that occur during transitions and compare them to existing metrics that apply only to the steady-state portions of the data. We then use these metrics to analyze transition characteristics of 6 commonly used classifiers on a novel dataset that includes continuous transitions between all combinations of seven different contraction classes. Results show that a linear discriminant classifier consistently outperforms other conventional classifiers during both transitions and steady-state conditions, despite having an almost identical offline performance. Results also show that, although offline training metrics correlate with steady-state performance, they do not correlate with transition performance. These insights suggest that the proposed set of metrics could provide a shift in perspective on the way pattern recognition systems are evaluated and provide a more representative picture of a classifier’s performance, potentially narrowing the gap between offline performance and online usability.
Automation of the Timed-Up-and-Go test using a conventional video camera
(IEEE, 2019-08-09) Savoie, Patrick; Cameron, James A. D.; Kaye, Mary E.; Scheme, Erik J.
The Timed-Up-and-Go (TUG) test is a simple clinical tool commonly used to quickly assess the mobility of patients. Researchers have endeavored to automate the test using sensors or motion tracking systems to improve its accuracy and to extract more resolved information about its sub-phases. While some approaches have shown promise, they often require the donning of sensors or the use of specialized hardware, such as the now discontinued Microsoft Kinect, which combines video information with depth sensors (RGBD). In this work, we leverage recent advances in computer vision to automate the TUG test using a regular RGB video camera without the need for custom hardware or additional depth sensors. Thirty healthy participants were recorded using a Kinect V2 and a standard video feed while performing multiple trials of 3 and 1.5 meter versions of the TUG test. A Mask Regional Convolutional Neural Net (R-CNN) algorithm and a Deep Multitask Architecture for Human Sensing (DMHS) were then used together to extract global 3D poses of the participants. The timing of transitions between the six key movement phases of the TUG test were then extracted using heuristic features extracted from the time series of these 3D poses. The proposed video-based vTUG system yielded the same error as the standard Kinect-based system for all six key transitions points, and average errors of less than 0.15 seconds from a multi-observer hand labeled ground truth. This work describes a novel method of video-based automation of the TUG test using a single standard camera, removing the need for specialized equipment and facilitating the extraction of additional meaningful information for clinical use.
Combined surface and intramuscular EMG for improved real-time myoelectric control performance
(Elsevier, 2014-03) Kamavuako, Ernest N.; Scheme, Erik J.; Englehart, Kevin B.
The four main functions that are available in current clinical prostheses (e.g. Otto Bock DMC Plus®) are power grasp, hand open, wrist pronation and wrist supination. Improving the control of these two DoFs is therefore of great clinical and commercial interest. This study investigates whether control performance can be improved by targeting wrist rotator muscles by means of intramuscular EMG. Nine able-bodied subjects were evaluated using offline metrics and during a real-time control task. Two intramuscular (targeted) and four surface EMG channels were recorded concurrently from the right forearm. The control was derived either from the four surface sources or by combining two surface channels combined with two intramuscular channels located in the pronator and supinator muscles (combined EMG). Five metrics (Throughput, Path efficiency, Average Speed, Overshoot and Completion Rate) were used to quantify real-time performance. A significant improvement of 20% in Throughput was obtained with combined EMG (0.90 ± 0.12 bit/s) compared to surface EMG alone (0.75 ± 0.10 bit/s). Furthermore, combined EMG performed significantly better than surface EMG in terms of Overshoot, Path Efficiency and offline classification error. No significant difference was found for Completion Rate and Average Speed. The results obtained in this study imply that targeting muscles that are involved in the rotation of the forearm could improve the performance of myoelectric control systems that include both wrist rotation and opening/closing of a terminal device. Keywords: Fitts’ Law test, targeted EMG, pattern recognition, intramuscular EMG, real-time control, wrist rotator
Effects of Confidence-Based Rejection on Usability and Error in Pattern Recognition-Based Myoelectric Control
(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2019) Robertson, Jason W.; Englehart, Kevin B.; Scheme, Erik J.
Rejection of movements based on the confidence in the classification decision has previously been demonstrated to improve the usability of pattern recognition based myoelectric control. To this point, however, the optimal rejection threshold has been determined heuristically, and it is not known how different thresholds affect the tradeoff between error mitigation and false rejections in real-time closed-loop control. To answer this question, 24 able-bodied subjects completed a real-time Fitts' law-style virtual cursor control task using a support vector machine classifier. It was found that rejection improved information throughput at all thresholds, with the best performance coming at thresholds between 0.60 and 0.75. Two fundamental types of error were defined and identified: operator error (identifiable, repeatable behaviors, directly attributable to the user), and systemic error (other errors attributable to misclassification or noise). The incidence of both operator and systemic errors were found to decrease as rejection threshold increased. Moreover, while the incidence of all error types correlated strongly with path efficiency, only systemic errors correlated strongly with throughput and trial completion rate. Interestingly, more experienced users were found to commit as many errors as novice users, despite performing better in the Fitts' task, suggesting that there is more to usability than error prevention alone. Nevertheless, these results demonstrate the usability gains possible with rejection across a range of thresholds for both novice and experienced users alike.
Myoelectric control with fixed convolution-based time-domain feature extraction: exploring the spatio–temporal interaction
(IEEE, 2022-02-24) Khushaba, Rami N.; Al-Timemy, Ali H.; Samuel, Oluwarotimi Williams; Scheme, Erik J.
The role of feature extraction in electromyogram (EMG) based pattern recognition has recently been emphasized with several publications promoting deep learning (DL) solutions that outperform traditional methods. It has been shown that the ability of DL models to extract temporal, spatial, and spatio–temporal information provides significant enhancements to the performance and generalizability of myoelectric control. Despite these advancements, it can be argued that DL models are computationally very expensive, requiring long training times, increased training data, and high computational resources, yielding solutions that may not yet be feasible for clinical translation given the available technology. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to leverage the benefits of spatio–temporal DL concepts into a computationally feasible and accurate traditional feature extraction method. Specifically, the proposed novel method extracts a set of well-known time-domain features into a matrix representation, convolves them with predetermined fixed filters, and temporally evolves the resulting features over a short and long-term basis to extract the EMG temporal dynamics. The proposed method, based on Fixed Spatio–Temporal Convolutions, offers significant reductions in the computational costs, while demonstrating a solution that can compete with, and even outperform, recent DL models. Experimental tests were performed on sparse-and high-density EMG (HD-EMG) signals databases, across a total of 44 subjects performing a maximum of 53 movements. Despite the simplification compared to deep approaches, our results show that the proposed solution significantly reduces the classification error rates by 3% to 10% in comparison to recent DL models, while being efficient for real-time implementations.
On the usability of intramuscular EMG for prosthetic control: A Fitts’ Law approach
(Elsevier, 2014-10) Kamavuako, Ernest N.; Scheme, Erik J.; Kevin B., Englehart
Previous studies on intramuscular EMG based control used offline data analysis. The current study investigates the usability of intramuscular EMG in two degree-of-freedom using a Fitts’ Law approach by combining classification and proportional control to perform a task, with real time feedback of user performance. Nine able-bodied subjects participated in the study. Intramuscular and surface EMG signals were recorded concurrently from the right forearm. Five performance metrics (Throughput, Path efficiency, Average Speed, Overshoot and Completion Rate) were used for quantification of usability. Intramuscular EMG based control performed significantly better than surface EMG for Path Efficiency (80.5 ± 2.4% vs. 71.5 ± 3.8%, P = 0.004) and Overshoot (22.0 ± 3.0% vs. 45.1 ± 6.6%, P = 0.01). No difference was found between Throughput and Completion Rate. However the Average Speed was significantly higher for surface (51.8 ± 5.5%) than for intramuscular EMG (35.7 ± 2.7%). The results obtained in this study imply that intramuscular EMG has great potential as control source for advanced myoelectric prosthetic devices.
The Influence of Training With Visual Biofeedback on the Predictability of Myoelectric Control Usability
(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2022) Nawfel, Jena L.; Englehart, Kevin B.; Scheme, Erik J.
Studies have shown that closed-loop myoelectric control schemes can lead to changes in user performance and behavior compared to open-loop systems. When users are placed within the control loop, such as during real-time use, they must correct for errors made by the controller and learn what behavior is necessary to produce desired outcomes. Augmented feedback, consequently, has been used to incorporate the user throughout the training process and to facilitate learning. This work explores the effect of visual feedback presented during user training on both the performance and predictability of a myoelectric classification-based control system. Our results suggest that properly designed feedback mechanisms and training tasks can influence the quality of the training data and the ability to predict usability using linear combinations of metrics derived from feature space. Furthermore, our results confirm that the most common in-lab training protocol, screen guided training, may yield training data that are less representative of online use than training protocols that incorporate the user in the loop. These results suggest that training protocols should be designed that better parallel the testing environment to more effectively prepare both the algorithms and users for real-time control.

Browsing by Author "Scheme, Erik J."

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