Minneapolis, MN
August 23, 2022
June 26, 2022
June 29, 2022
Engineering Physics and Physics Division Technical Session 2
16
10.18260/1-2--40416
https://peer.asee.org/40416
641
Bala Maheswaran is currently a senior faculty in the College of Engineering, Northeastern University. He has contributed and authored over one hundred publications consisting of original research and education-related papers, and conference proceedings. He has over twenty years of experience in teaching at Northeastern University. He is the Chair of the Engineering Physics Division, ASEE, Chair and executive board member, ASEE NE Section; the co-chair of TASME Conference (Technological Advances in Science, Medicine and Engineering, Toronto, Canada), Academic Member and the Unit Head, Electrical Engineering, ATINER (Athens Institute for Education and Research, Athens, Greece).
A charismatic educator, Dr. Maheswaran has received several awards including the Northeastern University first-year Engineering Outstanding Teaching Award twice, the ASEE-Northeast Section Outstanding Teaching Award, the ASEE Division Distinguished Educator and Service Award. He was also the nominee for the ASEE National Outstanding Teaching Medal and nominated to be the ASEE Fellow. Honoring his outstanding contribution, the TASME presented an award in his name at the 24th year award ceremony: “Dr. Bala Maheswaran Junior Faculty Award 2020 for Excellence in Science Education”, and awarded him the Life Time Achievement Award in 2021.
Kaitlyn Ramesh is a first-year Bioengineering and Biochemistry student at Northeastern University.
First-Year Mechanical Engineering Student at Northeastern University
Ananya Tadigadapa is a student at Northeastern University majoring in Computer Engineering and Computer Science, and minoring in Mathematics.
Abstract
Many injured athletes face the possibility of recurring injury while unknowingly overstraining their muscles. To help prevent such injuries, a sleeve-mounted medical device called the Myowearable was developed, able to monitor the amount of electrical stimulation in the adjacent muscle and alert the user when they are in danger of injury. Three electrodes of a surface electromyography (sEMG) sensor touching the skin record the stimulation in the muscle and send the collected data to a computer. The software on the user’s paired computer provides real-time visual and audio feedback to the user as well as analysis of the collected data to inform the user when they are more in danger of hurting themselves.
The current Myowearable prototype was designed to analyze stimulation in me of two easily-accessible muscles depending on where the sleeve is worn: the semimembranosus hamstring tendon or the long head of the biceps brachii. It alerts the user if they exceed an adjustable limit, predicting when they might injure themselves. In future iterations, the limit will be pre-calculated based on user characteristics. Furthermore, it has two real-time graphs: one that plots the raw values read via Bluetooth from the EMG sensor and a second smoothed graph of the data. After a data set is collected, the user can click a button on the Myowearable GUI that displays the aforementioned graphs as well two new ones. The third applies a Fourier transform to the signal to convert it to a frequency domain, and the fourth plots the mean frequency calculated per second of data. The slope of a line of best fit of the fourth graph can be used to determine the user’s current state of muscle fatigue, which can factor into an individual’s risk of injury. A commercially available and non-professional product for use during exercise such as the Myowearable will provide cost-friendly access to a tool that can greatly reduce the risk of recurring injury.
Maheswaran, B., & Azgar, S., & Ramesh, K., & Yee, T., & Tadigadapa, A., & Manxhari, V. (2022, August), The Myowearable Sleeve: A Surface Electromyography Injury Prevention Device Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--40416
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