Spectral analysis of surface EMG based on empirical mode decomposition

Muscle fatigue is a common experience in daily life. Some researchers have defined it as the incapacity to maintain the required or expected force. Obviously, force, power and torque recordings as direct measurements of muscle fatigue are difficult to be obtained in one experiment. The main issue when using conventional sEMG variables to quantify fatigue is their poor association with direct measures of fatigue. Therefore, there is a need to develop muscle fatigue approaches that relate changes in sEMG variables with muscle fatigue. The empirical mode decomposition which is a recent tool for the analysis of nonlinear and nonstationary time-series is presented.