ABSTRACT
The resultant signal is useful in observing how the instantaneous signal power changes as a function of time. For instance, the rectified-averaged Electromyograms (EMG) signals correlate well with the force generated by the muscle. EMG analysis can be aided by obtaining the absolute value of the signal being analyzed and low-pass filtering the resultant signal to obtain the envelope of the signal. This is sometimes referred to as “rectifier-averager” since averaging the signal in a moving time window has a similar effect as the low-pass filter. Any signal component below the diode opening voltage would be blocked by the rectifier and distort the signal output at low levels of the input. This would be true even if the EMG signals are amplified first before being sent through the rectifier diode.
