New multichannel bioamplifier for automatic detecting of electromyograms

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to develop bioinstrumentation for the automatic detection of electromyographic biosignals. Currently, detecting bioelectric signals generated by physiological activity of excitable muscle cells is one of the most attractive research topics in the field of Experimental Medical Physics; especially in the field of brain-computer interface in order to control the upper and/or lower ends of prostheses using only the brain. A high-performance four channel bioamplifier was built and calibrated to automatically measurement bioelectrical signals from muscle activity. In order to obtain the acquisition of multichannel myoelectric signals, a computational routine was developed in Labview called BioElectroMiograma v1.0. Experiments performed in a volunteer showed the bioamplifier can satisfactorily measure multichannel EMG biosignals of the biceps and triceps muscle. The bioamplifier operates in LINFIS. The prototype has proven to be capable of measuring biosignals generated by muscle contraction in the order of tens of microvolts. These preliminary results provide the basis for further investigations in bioinstrumentation by studying muscle physiology.