EMPress: Practical hand gesture classification with wrist-mounted EMG and pressure sensing

Jess McIntosh, Charlie McNeill, Mike Fraser, Frederic Kerber, Markus Lochtefeld, Antonio Krüger

Research output: Chapter or section in a book/report/conference proceedingChapter in a published conference proceeding

110 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

Practical wearable gesture tracking requires that sensors align with existing ergonomic device forms. We show that combining EMG and pressure data sensed only at the wrist can support accurate classification of hand gestures. A pilot study with unintended EMG electrode pressure variability led to exploration of the approach in greater depth. The EMPress technique senses both finger movements and rotations around the wrist and forearm, covering a wide range of gestures, with an overall 10-fold cross validation classification accuracy of 96%. We show that EMG is especially suited to sensing finger movements, that pressure is suited to sensing wrist and forearm rotations, and their combination is significantly more accurate for a range of gestures than either technique alone. The technique is well suited to existing wearable device forms such as smart watches that are already mounted on the wrist.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCHI '16: Proceedings, 34th Annual CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages2332-2342
Number of pages11
ISBN (Electronic)9781450333627
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 31 May 2016
Event34th Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2016 - San Jose, USA United States
Duration: 7 May 201612 May 2016

Publication series

NameConference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings
PublisherCHI

Conference

Conference34th Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2016
Country/TerritoryUSA United States
CitySan Jose
Period7/05/1612/05/16

Keywords

  • Electromyography (EMG)
  • Force sensitive resistors
  • Hand gestures
  • Practical wearable device design
  • Pressure

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design

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