Muscle Fatigue Assessment using One-Channel Single-Element Ultrasound Transducer

Abstract

In this paper, the thickness change of biceps brachii during the fatigue process is continuously monitored using one micro-size single-element ultrasound transducer and analyzed by the echo tracking algorithm. We focus on isometric, 50 % maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) of the elbow. Four subjects participates in the experiment and the result shows that the muscle thickness of biceps brachii continues to increase during the fatigue. There are two stages of the increasing process, the first of which sees a much higher increasing speed of the muscle thickness. Curve fitting using exponential functions is applied and the fitting result turns out to be good with the R^2 of 0.96. The preliminary study reveals that those custom-made single-element transducers would effectively extract muscle information to assess muscle fatigue.