A Deep Learning Sequential Decoder for Transient High-Density
  Electromyography in Hand Gesture Recognition Using Subject-Embedded Transfer
  Learning
Golara Ahmadi Azar Qin Hu Melika Emami Alyson Fletcher Sundeep Rangan S. Farokh Atashzar
Hand gesture recognition (HGR) has gained significant attention due to the
increasing use of AI-powered human-computer interfaces that can interpret the
deep spatiotemporal dynamics of biosignals from the peripheral nervous system,
such as surface electromyography (sEMG). These interfaces have a range of
applications, including the control of extended reality, agile prosthetics, and
exoskeletons. However, the natural variability of sEMG among individuals has
led researchers to focus on subject-specific solutions. Deep learning methods,
which often have complex structures, are particularly data-hungry and can be
time-consuming to train, making them less practical for subject-specific
applications. In this paper, we propose and develop a generalizable, sequential
decoder of transient high-density sEMG (HD-sEMG) that achieves 73% average
accuracy on 65 gestures for partially-observed subjects through
subject-embedded transfer learning, leveraging pre-knowledge of HGR acquired
during pre-training. The use of transient HD-sEMG before gesture stabilization
allows us to predict gestures with the ultimate goal of counterbalancing system
control delays. The results show that the proposed generalized models
significantly outperform subject-specific approaches, especially when the
training data is limited, and there is a significant number of gesture classes.
By building on pre-knowledge and incorporating a multiplicative
subject-embedded structure, our method comparatively achieves more than 13%
average accuracy across partially observed subjects with minimal data
availability. This work highlights the potential of HD-sEMG and demonstrates
the benefits of modeling common patterns across users to reduce the need for
large amounts of data for new users, enhancing practicality.