Effects of Window Size and Contraction Types on the Stationarity of Biceps Brachii Muscle EMG Signals

International audienceIn order to analyze surface electromyography (EMG) signals, it is necessary to use techniques based on time (temporal) domain or frequency (spectral) domain. However, these techniques are based on the mathematical assumption of signal stationarity. On the other hand, EMG signal stationarity varies depending on analysis window size and contraction types. So in this paper, a suitable window size for an analysis of EMG during static and dynamic contractions was investigated using a stationarity test, the modified reverse arrangement test. More than 90% of the signals measured during static contraction can be considered as stationary signals for all window sizes. On average, a window size of 375 ms provides the most stationary information, 94.29% of EMG signals for static muscle contraction. For dynamic muscle contraction, the percentage of stationary signals decreased as the window size was increased. If the threshold of 80% stationarity was set to validate stationarity for each window size, a suitable window size should be 250 ms or lesser. For a real-time application that a size of analysis window plus processing time should be less than 300 ms, a window size of 250 ms is suggested for both contraction types