title: Real-Time Neural Signals Decoding onto Off-the-Shelf DSP Processors for Neuroprosthetic Applications.
abstract: The control of upper limb neuroprostheses through the peripheral nervous system (PNS) can allow restoring motor functions in amputees. At present, the important aspect of the real-time implementation of neural decoding algorithms on embedded systems has been often overlooked, notwithstanding the impact that limited hardware resources have on the efficiency/effectiveness of any given algorithm. Present study is addressing the optimization of a template matching based algorithm for PNS signals decoding that is a milestone for its real-time, full implementation onto a floating-point digital signal processor (DSP). The proposed optimized real-time algorithm achieves up to 96% of correct classification on real PNS signals acquired through LIFE electrodes on animals, and can correctly sort spikes of a synthetic cortical dataset with sufficiently uncorrelated spike morphologies (93% average correct classification) comparably to the results obtained with top spike sorter (94% on average on the same dataset). The power consumption enables more than 24 h processing at the maximum load, and latency model has been derived to enable a fair performance assessment. The final embodiment demonstrates the real-time performance onto a low-power off-the-shelf DSP, opening to experiments exploiting the efferent signals to control a motor neuroprosthesis.
authors.forename: Danilo
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pani
authors.forename: Gianluca
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Barabino
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Citi
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Meloni
authors.forename: Stanisa
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Raspopovic
authors.forename: Silvestro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Micera
authors.forename: Luigi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Raffo
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D003199:Computer Systems; D011211:Electric Power Supplies; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D058117:Neural Prostheses; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods*; D051381:Rats; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012584:Sciatic Nerve / Q000502:physiology*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D058067:Wavelet Analysis