Development of an ad hoc measurement station for the human surface electromyography in rest position

The study of activities of superficial muscles in rest positions is today an interesting research field for many clinical applications. Evaluation of human surface muscle activity and stress, such as face muscles, is important for the functional study, diagnosis, prosthetic and orthodontic therapy. The surface electromyography (SEMG) is a measurement technique widely adopted for evaluating the activity of body surface muscles in a non-invasive way, even if this is not a straightforward task. The most serious measurement problems are related to the limited electromyographic signal amplitude, and specifically to the high noise sensitivity of traditional SEMG measurement instruments. The main goal of this paper is to report on the research activities concerning the implementation of an ad hoc measurement station for the identification of the biological signals. The proposed system, designed starting from the analysis of the results obtained with a high performance electromiographic apparatus, is characterized by high noise immunity and excellent signal sensitivity. The main experimental results, obtained with a prototype of the proposed system are presented and discussed in the paper.