Real-time classification of shoulder girdle motions for multifunctional prosthetic hand control: A preliminary study.

In every country in the world, there are a number of amputees who have been exposed to some accidents that led to the loss of their upper limbs. The aim of this study is to suggest a system for real-time classification of five classes of shoulder girdle motions for high-level upper limb amputees using a pattern recognition system. In the suggested system, the wavelet transform was utilized for feature extraction, and the extreme learning machine was used as a classifier. The system was tested on four intact-limbed subjects and one amputee, with eight channels involving five electromyography channels and three-axis accelerometer sensor. The study shows that the suggested pattern recognition system has the ability to classify the shoulder girdle motions for high-level upper limb motions with 88.4% average classification accuracy for four intact-limbed subjects and 92.8% classification accuracy for one amputee by combining electromyography and accelerometer channels. The outcomes of this study may suggest that the proposed pattern recognition system can help to provide control signals to drive a prosthetic arm for high-level upper limb amputees.

Subtractive fuzzy classifier based driver distraction levels classification using EEG.

[Purpose] In earlier studies of driver distraction, researchers classified distraction into two levels (not distracted, and distracted). This study classified four levels of distraction (neutral, low, medium, high). [Subjects and Methods] Fifty Asian subjects (n=50, 43 males, 7 females), age range 20-35 years, who were free from any disease, participated in this study. Wireless EEG signals were recorded by 14 electrodes during four types of distraction stimuli (Global Position Systems (GPS), music player, short message service (SMS), and mental tasks). We derived the amplitude spectrum of three different frequency bands, theta, alpha, and beta of EEG. Then, based on fusion of discrete wavelet packet transforms and fast fourier transform yield, we extracted two features (power spectral density, spectral centroid frequency) of different wavelets (db4, db8, sym8, and coif5). Mean ± SD was calculated and analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed. A fuzzy inference system classifier was applied to different wavelets using the two extracted features. [Results] The results indicate that the two features of sym8 posses highly significant discrimination across the four levels of distraction, and the best average accuracy achieved by the subtractive fuzzy classifier was 79.21% using the power spectral density feature extracted using the sym8 wavelet. [Conclusion] These findings suggest that EEG signals can be used to monitor distraction level intensity in order to alert drivers to high levels of distraction.