Abstract—This paper presents the game Myo-Pong, a simple graphical table-tennis game included in the portable UVa Neuromuscular Training System (UVa-NTS). Myo-Pong demonstrates the capabilities of the UVa-NTS as a myoelectric real-time system for training and for playing by means of myoelectric control.

I. INTRODUCTION YO-PONG, as shown in Fig. 1, is a table-tennis game that resembles a popular game of the seventies, but applied to myoelectric control. It is integrated in the

custom UVa-NTS real-time platform, developed in the University of Valladolid [1]. There are recent works related to these systems [2]. But due to the diversity in the engineering tools that must be merged, i.e., Matlab, specific hardware, real-time, graphical tools, it is not a common issue the availability of a portable and operative system.

Myo-Pong permits a training configuration by means of these parameters: i) the speed of the ball: constant or incremental; ii) the length of the player bar. To evaluate the training efficiency, a set of parameters to be measured is defined: the Success Rate, the Admissible Speed, the Precision Control and the Fatigue Time.

The Success Rate (SR) is the ratio between successful hits and the total amount of collisions against the player’s wall (left or right side of the window). The complementary is the Error Rate (ER): the failure ratio related to the total amount of collisions. The Admissible Speed (AS) measures the maximum ball speed the user can track, maintaining the error rate under a fixed rate. It can be related to the ability to perform rapid actions with a prosthetic limb. The Precision Control (PC) measures the accuracy in the actions. The measurement is performed by changing the bar length: the shorter the bar is, the more difficult the hits will be. It is suitable to practice accuracy in proportional control of prosthetic limbs. And the Fatigue Time (FT): once the ER is stabilized, the FT measures the time interval that maintains a stationary ER. The measure is finished when the ER is increased due to muscle fatigue. The FT is obtained after a dynamic and amusing exercise for the user, so it is an

Manuscript received April 11, 2008. Ramón de la Rosa is with the Department of Signal Theory, Comm. &

TE, University of Valladolid, Telecommunications College, Camino del Cementerio, 47011-Valladolid, Spain (phone: +34 98342185593; fax. +34 983423667; e-mail: ramros@tel.uva.es).

Alonso Alonso and Daniel Abásolo are also with the Department of Signal Th., Comm. & TE, Telecommunications College.

Sonia de la Rosa is currently a student at the ETSI de Telecomunicación, University of Valladolid.

interesting reference for the myoelectric actuation of devices in daily living activities. Table 1 shows the SR and ER behaviour in different scenes, depending on which parameter is fixed as constant, increased or decreased: the ball speed, the bar length, or the bounces per player, i.e., bounces against the bar plus bounces against the side wall

II. CONCLUSION Myo-Pong demonstrates the gaming capabilities of a

myoelectric real-time system. It is a valuable graphical tool for motor rehabilitation, prosthesis training or even as an example of a neuromuscular interface to play.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The UVa-NTS implementation was awarded in the year

2007 by the 3M Foundation of Spain.

REFERENCES [1] R. de la Rosa, Real Time Signal Conditioning and Processing of

Biologic Signals. Ann Arbor, Michigan: ProQuest Information and Learning, 2006.

[2] M. Hauschild, R. Davoodi, G. E. Loeb, "A Virtual Rality Environment for Designing and Fitting Neural Prosthetic Limbs”, IEEE Trans. Rehab. Eng., vol. 15, pp. 9-15, March 2007.

Myo-Pong: a neuromuscular game for the UVa-Neuromuscular Training System Platform

R. de la Rosa, A. Alonso, Member, IEEE, S. de la Rosa, and D. Abásolo, Member, IEEE

MFig. 1. Myo-Pong with the monitoring mode activated. Data columns show the SR, ER, ball speed, normalized bar length and the number of bounces for each player.

TABLE 1 TRAINING PARAMETERS

IN OUT

Ball speed BAR LENGTH #Bounces per player

SR ER

const const const const const const * *

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