A real-time pattern recognition based myoelectric control usability study implemented in a virtual environment

Pattern recognition based myoelectric control systems have been well researched; however very few systems have been implemented in a clinical environment. Although classification accuracy or classification error is the metric most often reported to describe how well these control systems perform, very little work research has been conducted to relate this measure to the usability of the system. This work presents a virtual clothespin usability test to assess the performance of pattern recognition based myoelectric control systems. The results suggest that users can complete the virtual task in reasonable time frames when using systems with high classification accuracies. Additionally, results indicate that a clinically-supported classifier training approach (inclusion of the transient potion of contraction signals) may reduce classification accuracy but increase real-time performance.