Lower-Limb Joint Torque Prediction Using LSTM Neural Networks and Transfer Learning

Estimation of joint torque during movement provides important information in several settings, such as effect of athletes’ training or of a medical intervention, or analysis of the remaining muscle strength in a wearer of an assistive device. The ability to estimate joint torque during daily activities using wearable sensors is increasingly relevant in such settings. In this study, lower limb joint torques during ten daily activities were predicted by long short-term memory (LSTM) neural networks and transfer learning. LSTM models were trained with muscle electromyography signals and lower limb joint angles. Hip flexion/extension, hip abduction/adduction, knee flexion/extension and ankle dorsiflexion/plantarflexion torques were predicted. The LSTM models’ performance in predicting torque was investigated in both intra-subject and inter-subject scenarios. Each scenario was further divided into intra-task and inter-task tests. We observed that LSTM models could predict lower limb joint torques during various activities accurately with relatively low error (root mean square error ≤ 0.14 Nm/kg, normalized root mean square error ≤ 8.7%) either through a uniform model or through ten separate models in intra-subject tests. Furthermore, a transfer learning technique was adopted in the inter-task and inter-subject tests to further improve the generalizability of LSTM models by pre-training a model on multiple subjects and/or tasks and transferring the learned knowledge to a target task/subject. Particularly in the inter-subject tests, we could predict joint torques accurately in several movements after training from only a few movements from new subjects.