Motor and bioelectric evaluation of human movements through inertial and myoelectric sensors

Video equipments used to capture motor and bioelectric information in human movements are usually expensive and difficult to use in environments outside studios or laboratories. This paper describes the development and application of sensor devices for motor and bioelectric evaluation, through the capture of myoelectric and inclination signals of human body limbs. The sensor device developed is composed of a pair of differential electrodes and a three-axis accelerometer, and the information captured by the device is transmitted via wireless communication. Due to its little size, lightweight, highly autonomous, with high calculation capacity and high data rate transmission, this sensor device has been used to command a mobile robot and a robotic wheelchair through head movements, and to evaluate the positional sense of patient knees in physiotherapy. A commercial sensor device was also evaluated in this work, and some results were obtained, showing that these sensor devices are an alternative to be used to evaluate human movements.