An Adaptive Algorithm for Online Interference Cancellation in EMG Sensors

One of the biggest issues encountered in the analysis of sensitive electromyography (EMG) sensor data is the power line interference (PLI). Conventional methods in literature either lose valuable sensor data or inadequately decrease the power line noise. Instead of filtering out predetermined frequencies, adaptively estimating the spectrum of PLI can provide better performance. This paper introduces an online adaptive algorithm that removes the power line interference in real time without disturbing the true EMG data. Our method sequentially processes the biomedical signal to properly estimate and remove the PLI component. Through experiments with real EMG data, we compared our method to the five state-of-the-art techniques. Our algorithm outperformed all of them with the highest SNR gain (3.6 dB on average) and with the least disturbance of the true EMG signal (0.0152 dB loss on average). Our method reduces the PLI the most while keeping the valuable sensor data loss at its minimum in comparison to the state-of-the-art. Reducing the noise without disturbing the valuable sensor data provides higher quality signals with decreased interference, which can be better processed and used in biomedical research.