The simulation of click and double-click through EMG signals

Patients with severe motor impairments, victims of stroke, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and spinal cord injury are prevented from oral and gesture communication, demanding alternative channels and methods of communication, possibly using a computer. In order to obtain the complete emulation of a standard mouse, the single-click and double-click actions are desirable functionalities. In this study, the implementation of such actions is executed by the analysis of the electromyographic signal recorded from the Frontalis muscle. Muscle activity is discriminated from noise and this information is used to feed a state-machine that in turn decides which action is intended. The method uses an adaptive threshold, which offers freedom for the selection of the parameters of the system. The rate of successfully detected commands found was up to 100% for the single-click and 92% for the double-click. Even though good results were found for double-clicks, the experiment indicate muscle fatigue in the short term. The time response found was below 300 ms suggesting real-time implementation is feasible. Also, other devices can be operated with this approach, if it is accepted as a two symbols system generator.