Multi-Scale Attention Patching Encoder Network: A Deployable Model for Continuous Estimation of Hand Kinematics from Surface Electromyographic Signals

Abstract Background Simultaneous and proportional control (SPC) based on surface electromyographic (sEMG) signals has emerged as a research hotspot in the field of human-machine interaction (HMI). However, existing continuous motion estimation methods suffer from issues such as low accuracy, poorly deployable performance, and limited motion diversity in predicting, which limits their applications in HMI. To overcome these problems, we propose a smooth Multi-scale Attention Patching Encoder Network (sMAPEN). Methods The sMAPEN consists of three modules, the Multi-scale Attention Fusion (MAF) module, the Patching Encoder (PE) module, and a smoothing layer. The MAF module adaptively captures the local spatiotemporal features at multiple scales, the PE module acquires the global spatiotemporal features of sEMG, and the smoothing layer further improves prediction stability. Results To evaluate the performance of the model, we conducted continuous estimation of 40 subjects performing over 40 different hand movements on the Ninapro DB2 dataset. The results show that the average Pearson correlation coefficient (CC), normalized root mean square error (NRMSE), coefficient of determination (R2), and smoothness (SMOOTH) of the sMAPEN model are 0.9082, 0.0646°, 0.8163, and -0.0017, respectively, which significantly outperforms that of the state-of-the-art methods in all metrics (p < 0.01). Furthermore, we tested the real-time performance of sMAPEN on the portable device, with a delay of only 97.93ms. Conclusions Our model can predict up to 40 hand movements while achieving the highest predicting accuracy compared with other methods. Besides, the lightweight design strategy brings an improvement in inference speed, which enables the model to be deployed on wearable devices. All these promotions imply that sMAPEN holds great potential in HMI.