EMG-Force and EMG-Target Models During Force-Varying Bilateral Hand-Wrist Contraction in Able-Bodied and Limb-Absent Subjects

System identification models relating forearm electromyogram (EMG) signals to phantom wrist radial-ulnar deviation force, pronation-supination moment and/or hand open-close force (EMG-force) are hampered by lack of supervised force/moment output signals in limb-absent subjects. In 12 able-bodied and 7 unilateral transradial limb-absent subjects, we studied three alternative supervised output sources in one degree of freedom (DoF) and 2-DoF target tracking tasks: (1) bilateral tracking with force feedback from the contralateral side (non-dominant for able-bodied/ sound for limb-absent subjects) with the contralateral force as the output, (2) bilateral tracking with force feedback from the contralateral side with the target as the output, and (3) dominant/limb-absent side unilateral target tracking without feedback and the target used as the output. “Best-case” EMG-force errors averaged ~ 10% of maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) when able-bodied subjects’ dominant limb produced unilateral force/moment with feedback. When either bilateral tracking source was used as the model output, statistically larger errors of 12–16 %MVC resulted. The no-feedback alternative produced errors of 25–30 %MVC, which was nearly half the tested force range of ± 30 %MVC. Therefore, the no-feedback model output was not acceptable. We found little performance variation between DoFs. Many subjects struggled to perform 2-DoF target tracking.