Sagittal-Plane Knee Flexion Moment Estimation Using a Lightweight Deep Learning Framework Based on Sequential Surface...

Knee joint moment is an important biomechanical parameter for sports assessment, rehabilitation monitoring, and human-machine interaction. However, direct measurement is often restricted to laboratory-based settings. Surface electromyography (sEMG) offers a non-invasive alternative for indirect joint moment estimation, but many existing deep learning models remain too computationally demanding for potential wearable edge deployment. To address this gap, this study proposes Topo2DCNN-LSTM, a lightweight two-dimensional (2D) convolutional neural network model, designed for sagittal-plane knee flexion moment estimation. The model used a feature-based sequential representation, transforming raw sEMG signals into compact Root Mean Square (RMS) feature frames. The input was processed by a lightweight 2D convolutional neural network (CNN) encoder and paired with long short-term memory (LSTM) units. The model was trained on a public walking dataset of healthy subjects with synchronized sEMG and joint kinetics at two treadmill speeds. When compared with selected deep learning baselines, the quantized model achieved a mean RMS Error of 0.088 ± 0.020 Nm/kg at 1.2 m/s and 0.114 ± 0.034 Nm/kg at 1.8 m/s. On a SparkFun Thing Plus-SAMD51, it achieved an average inference latency of 28 ms using 71,316 bytes of random-access memory (RAM) and 257,172 bytes of flash. These results support its use as a proof of concept for personalized unilateral knee moment estimation with isolated on-device inference feasibility under resource-constrained and limited walking conditions.