Simulation Study for Electrocardiography Contamination in Surface Electromyography

Proximity of the collection sites of the heart muscle electrical activity (ECG) and the surface electromyographic signals (sEMG) with the volume conduction characteristics of the ECG through the torso are the most often reasons of contamination between the ECG and EMG signals. A lot of studies have quantified ECG removal techniques relative to an uncontaminated EMG signal (standard measured or criterion mathematical model), or made direct comparisons between different methods for a given set of data. And a lot of researches have been written to specify the direct relationship between electrocardiography (ECG) and surface electromyography (sEMG) during the measurement process. The present study, started from sets of ECGs and EMGs collected for different persons in such contaminated and uncontaminated ways, and then rearranged in new mathematical ways by calculating the convolution of the ECG and EMG signals the new single trend have been called ECMG. After that the contamination factor for the ECMG is calculated by dividing the spectrum area over the number of samples used in ECMG. A contamination curve has been drawn with respect to the change in the number of samples. This technique represents a new method derived to separate between ECG and EMG contaminated in such two different sources.