A Modular, Wireless and Wearable Biosignal Acquisition Platform
Antonios Doukakis, Aikaterini Smyrli, Makis Livadas, Henrique De Melo Ribeiro, Shadiya Alingal Meethal, Mohamad Reza Shahabian Alashti, Gabriella Lakatos, Patrick Holthaus
Abstract
We present a modular, wireless biosignal acquisition platform designed to enable scalable electromyography (EMG) and inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensing for wearable robotics applications. The system supports up to 64 EMG channels and integrates a 9-axis IMU, leveraging a distributed Leader-Follower board architecture. In this work, we demonstrate synchronised acquisition of 32 EMG channels together with IMU motion data in a fully wireless setup. The embedded firmware ensures low-latency, high-fidelity streaming at 1.4 kHz over a 2.4-GHz industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band link. Benchmarking shows that the platform maintains uniformly strong performance across noise, power, footprint, bandwidth, and scalability, in contrast to existing designs that optimize only a single metric. Experimental demonstrations confirm reliable acquisition of high-density EMG and IMU signals across functional activities, highlighting the device’s robustness and wearability. The proposed system provides a compact and flexible solution for intent-aware wearable technologies, with applications in assistive exosuits, rehabilitation, and human–robot interaction.