An armband-type finger language recognition system based on ensemble artificial neural network

Deaf people use their own national sign or finger languages for communication. They have a lot of inconvenience in both social and financial problems. In this study, a finger language recognition system using an ensemble machine learning algorithm with an armband sensor of 8 channel surface electromyography (sEMG) is introduced. The algorithm consisted of signal acquisition, digital filtering, feature vector extraction, and an ensemble classifier based on artificial neural network (EANN). It was evaluated with Korean finger language (14 consonants, 17 vowels and 7 numbers) in 20 normal subjects. EANN was categorized with the number of classifiers (1 to 10) and the size of training data (50 to 1500). Mean accuracies and standard deviations for each structure were then obtained. Results showed that, as the number of classifiers (1 to 8) and the size of training data (50 to 300) were increased, the average accuracy of the E-ANN classifier was increased while the standard deviation was decreased. Statistical analysis showed that the optimal E-ANN structure was composed with 8 classifiers and 300 training data. This study suggested that E-ANN was more accurate than the general ANN for sign/finger language recognition.