Functional Variable Selection for EMG-based Control of a Robotic Hand Prosthetic

State-of-the-art robotic hand prosthetics generate finger and wrist movement through pattern recognition (PR) algorithms using features of forearm electromyogram (EMG) signals, but re- quires extensive training and is prone to poor predictions for conditions outside the training data (Peerdeman et al., 2011; Scheme et al., 2010). We propose a novel approach to develop a dynamic robotic limb by utilizing the recent history of EMG signals in a model that accounts for physiological features of hand movement which are ignored by PR algorithms. We do this by viewing EMG signals as functional covariates and develop a functional linear model that quantifies the effect of the EMG signals on finger/wrist velocity through a bivariate coefficient function that is allowed to vary with current finger/wrist position. The model is made par- simonious and interpretable through a two-step variable selection procedure, called Sequential Adaptive Functional Empirical group LASSO (SAFE-gLASSO). Numerical studies show excel- lent selection and prediction properties of SAFE-gLASSO compared to popular alternatives. For our motivating dataset, the method correctly identifies the few EMG signals that are known to be important for an able-bodied subject with negligible false positives and the model can be directly implemented in a robotic prosthetic.