A Video-Synchronized High-Speed-EMG and Metabolic Data Acquisition System

Abstract

A video-synchronized electromyography (EMG) and metabolic data acquisition system is being developed to monitor human response to workplace conditions. This high-speed EMG data rate (1000 Samples/second/channel for 16 channels) plus metabolic data acquisition (20 seconds of refresh interval) is suitable for the combination of frequency-domain muscle fatigue and time-domain human stress studies associated with human activities. The system is composed of a video camera/recorder to record human activity images, and a personal computer to simultaneously acquire the EMG and the metabolic data (including oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide generation and heart rate) along with the video time-codes from the video recorder. The computer uses the time-codes recorded both on the video tape and in the data file to synchronize each video frame with the corresponding segment of the physiological data sequence. With the recorded time-codes, the computer is able to search a physiological data segment correspondent to any recorded video frame, and vice versa.

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