Surface Electromyography (sEMG) based Hand Gesture Recognition (HGR) is finding its application as a generalpurpose wearable Human Machine Interface (HMI). However, the same is rarely explored for Foot Gesture Recognition (FGR). FGR is interesting as a hands-free controller, e.g. in case of an electric guitar player who controls the musical effects by foot pedals. Yet, FGR is challenging, since general leg movements such as walking
can be classified as foot gestures. In this article, the application of a minimalistic sEMG wearable “footband” is demonstrated as a hands-free HMI.

System structure: The 3D printed cases enclose the dry electrodes and the in-made boards. The system shows high adaptability thanks to the ergonomic structure and the elastic band.

Lower leg anatomy: Tibialis Anterior and Gastrocnemius Lateralis muscles; electrodes positioning indicative zones for the dual channel sEMG.

System wearing example: in case of non-aligned positioning, two elastic strips can be used to make the system stable and comfortable.

Foot gestures: sequential images illustration.

System hardware: modules and communication protocols are highlighted; the signals, acquired by the electrodes, pass through the analog conditioning circuits and then are converted by the ADC blocks.
The micro-controller sends information to the BLE module to establish the communication with the App.

Gestures patterns: signals are plotted on a Windows 10 application; the red part highlights the time interval during which the features are extracted. Each picture shows for both channels three instances of the same gesture. The plot expresses the EMG signal in terms of percentage of maximum voltage output vs time(seconds). Gastrocnemius signal in the left window and Tibialis signal in the right one.