Everyday Grasping Behavior Measurement with Wearable Electromyography

A wearable sensor technology enables us to conduct scientific research on our everyday lives by measuring everyday phenomena quantitatively. For example, observing and understanding infant's behavior in everyday lives is required for developing preventive measures of infant's injuries. This paper describes a wearable electromyography (EMG) sensor for measuring grasping behavior in a daily living space. The prototype system of a wearable EMG sensor developed by the authors is presented. This paper proposes a method for counting grasping behavior using the developed system. The results of the experiment conducted for an adult show that the system can estimate grasping times within an error of 25%. This paper also presents a downsized wearable EMG sensor for an infant and reports an EMG map, which visualizes the events related to arm motions with location, as one of applications of the developed EMG sensor.