Deepak Khatri
For precise muscle activity monitoring, we at Upside Down Labs have created a bunch of low-cost open-source EMG sensors like:
- BioAmp EXG Pill (sensor to record EMG, ECG, EOG, or EEG)
- Muscle BioAmp Patchy
- Muscle BioAmp Shield
- Muscle BioAmp Candy
- Muscle BioAmp BisCute
- Muscle BioAmp Click (coming soon!)
These are analog sensors requiring an ADC to work, you can connect them directly to ADC pin of a micro-controller development board like Arduino UNO/Nano. The graphics below shows how you can connect the BioAmp EXG Pill to an Arduino UNO board to record precise EMG recording.
Note: For BioAmp EXG Pill to record EMG signals you'll have to create a solder joint near the band-pass marking on the back side of the PCB. The image below highlights the location:
For creating an EMG (muscle signal) based dino game controller we will be using Muscle BioAmp Shield because it includes onboard LEDs and Buttons which we need to create our game controller. It also simplifies the connection process as it sits directly on top of an Arduino UNO board.
The EMG signal changes very rapidly and using raw signal for anything is not practical at all. To convert the raw EMG signal into something that can be used reliably for creating HCI we use an algorithm called envelope detection. The graphics below shows just that, the signal in blue is the raw EMG signal and signal in Red is the envelope of the signal which we use to control the game.
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Peter Buczkowski