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Use of combined ARX - NARX model in

identification of neuromuscular system

Article March 2009

DOI: 10.1109/CICA.2009.4982786

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 Use of Combined ARX NARX Model in Identification
of Neuromuscular System
Sina Tafazoli, Karim Salahshoor, Mohammad B. Menhaj

Abstract-- Neural system that controls movement and The next level is local feedback loops that perform basic
posture is a highly nonlinear complex system. Its reflex actions in spinal cord. There are several command
adaptability and easy accommodation to changes in centers in the brain that form the upper levels of
environment and task specifications make it an ideal hierarchy. They include stem, cerebellum, motor cortex
system. In this paper, the muscle control system from sensory cortex and many other that send intention for
spinal cord to muscle displacement has been studied. action to supraspinal controller. This hierarchy has shown
At first, a detailed nonlinear model is simulated in in Fig.1.
Simulink based on an already developed work. Then,
three system identification techniques are examined to
estimate the behavior of this complex system. The first
one is based on popular linear ARX model. Then, the
system is modeled by NARX neural network
(Nonlinear Autoregressive Network with Exogenous
Inputs) which has a powerful structural network in
modeling dynamical systems. Finally, a new method of
modeling using combined NARX and ARX structure
is proposed in which ARX gets the linear part of the
system and the NARX picks up the nonlinearities. The
simulation results demonstrate the superiority of the
latter method with respect to other examined
approaches.

I-INTRODUCTION

Effective treating the disease or injures affecting
posture and movement control is possible through better
knowledge of functional structure of controlling central
nervous system. Seeing how nervous system control
complex movements and adapts to changing tasks and
environmental perturbations will help engineers inspire
controlling and modeling structures. A computational
approach based in simulation, signal processing and
estimation will help understanding fundamental principles
of this complex system. Computational models have been
proposed and implemented to this end. These model
developments simultaneously helped understanding
function of CNS for motor control and contributed in
advance of new algorithms and controllers in robotics.
Its the hierarchical structure that enables neural
control system to achieve desired adaptation and
robustness. Musculoskeletal apparatus with sensory
organs with reflects the status of the system is at the
bottom of the hierarchy [1].
Sina Tafazoli is with the Tehran South Azad University, Tehran, Iran
(corresponding author phone: 098-21-66920317; e-mail:
tafazolisina1@gmail.com).
Karim Salahshoor is with the Department of Instrumentation and
Automation, Petroleum University of Technology, Tehran, Iran (email:
salahshoor@put.ac.ir)
Mohammad Bagher Menhaj is with the Amirkabir University of
Technology, Tehran, Iran ( email: tmenhaj@ieee.org )
Fig..1. Structural representation of neuromuscular system [1].
In this work, first, we modeled a neuro-mascular
structure from motoneuron to single muscle with details
based on modeled proposed in He el al and then take this
model as true model. Identification of ARX model and
neural networks model and their combined NARX-ARX
structure has been investigated mainly in this work.
II- INTERACTIONS OF SENSORY FEEDBACK
PATHWAYS IN THE SPINAL CORD
motoneuron is command center that activates the
single muscle in the spinal cord. It is also called extrafusal
fiber. Several feedback loops (called reflexes) regulate
output of the motoneuron. In addition, there are some
inputs from supra spinal centers and spinal pattern
generators which regulate its output. These loops are
negative feedback from Renshaw cells (R in Fig.2.),
feedback from spindles called recurrent inhibition (RI)
(intrafusal and la in Fig.2.), force feedback from Golgi
tendon organs (GTO) and feedback from skin sensors
[1],[2].
 IV. SIMULATION EXPERIMENTS

Since the model developed in the previous section

contains enough details about the circuit structure in the
spinal cord, it can be used it for the system identification
task.
The simulated muscle is activated by a 6.5nA tonic
drive to motoneuron to produce approximate 10 p/s
motoneuron firing pattern. The ramp and hold response of
the system are depicted in Figs. 6-12.
8

6
Fig. 2. Detailed biological model represented as neuro- musculoskeletal
dynamics [1]. 5

4
Being able to change parameters and structures during
simulation is advantage of modeling approach. However, 3

containing enough detail on dynamic properties and 2

anatomy of the system is mandatory for reaching
reasonable results. Here, we use He et al model which is 1

based on experimental measurement of every detail reflex 0

0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000
pathway and neuronal dynamics. Detailed model structure
is shown in Fig.3 . Fig.5. Ramp and hold input

10

Fig.3. Detailed and frequently used model structure for spinal control of 0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000
movement [1].
Fig.6. Motoneuron firing rate
III. MODEL BUILDING
0.35
The Simulink is a useful platform for modeling
dynamical systems. We used Simulink Version 2006a to 0.3

build and simulate muscle control system. The whole 0.25

system was divided to the blocks which are illustrated in
Fig.3. Resulting blocks are then implemented in Simulink 0.2

as in Fig.4. 0.15

0.1

0.05

0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000

Fig.7. Renshaw cell firing rate

Fig. 4. Block diagram of the neuromuscular system in Simulink

 1.4
For a system with nu inputs and ny outputs, A(q)
is an ny-by-ny matrix. A(q) can be represented as
1.2
a polynomial in the shift operator q 1 :
1

0.8 A(q) = I ny + A1 q 1 + ... + Ana q na (2)

0.6
B(q) is an ny-by-ny matrix. B(q) can be
0.4 represented as a polynomial in the shift operator
0.2 q 1 :
0

B (q ) = B0 + B1q 1 + ... + Bnb q nb (3)

0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000

Fig.8. Golgi tendon organ response

B. Identification with ARX model
100

90
The actual system is estimated with an ARX model.
80
The excitation input signal has been shown in Fig. 13.
70 7

60
6
50

40 5

30
4
20

10 3

0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 2

Fig.9. Muscle force 1

0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
20 4
x 10
18 Fig.13. Identification input
16

14 As depicted in Fig.13, this input is PRBS (Pseudo

12 Random Binary Signal) signal.
10 Displacement of muscle under the influence of this
8
input is illustrated in Fig. 14.
6 18

4
16
2
14
0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000
12

Fig.10. Muscle displacement 10

V. IDENTIFICATION OF MUSCLE CONTROL 6

SYSTEM WITH ARX MODEL STRUCTURE 4

A. Definition of Multiple-Output ARX Models 2

A multiple-output ARX model can be used to 0

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
model a multiple-output dynamic system [3]. The 4
x 10
ARX model structure is given by the following Fig. 14. Muscle displacement for PRBS input
equation:
Resulting input-output relationship was employed to
build auto regressive models with ARX structure. So,
A(q) y (t ) = B(q)u (t nk ) + e(t ) (1) various ARX structures were examined and arx771
represented the best fit (62.42%) to data. Results are sown
1
in Fig. 15.
0.8

Measured and simulated model output 0.6

20
Out 0.4
arx771
0.2
15
0

-0.2
10
-0.4

-0.6
5
-0.8

-1
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000
0

Fig. 16. The input applied for system identification

-5
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 An NARX based neural network with time delay of 3
Time 4
x 10
in both the input and output signals was utilized for
Fig. 15 Green: ARX 771 output Black: Actual output
modeling purpose. Output of the network and the actual
output are shown in Figs. 17 and 18.
VI. IDENTIFICATION WITH NARX BASED NEURAL
NETWORK 1

0.8

A. Basic Concept 0.6

The nonlinear autoregressive network with exogenous 0.4

inputs (NARX) is a recurrent dynamic network, with 0.2

feedback connections enclosing several layers of the 0

network. The NARX model is based on the linear ARX -0.2

model, which is commonly used in time-series modeling. -0.4

Defining equation for the NARX model is as follows: -0.6

-0.8

y (t ) = f ( y (t 1), y (t 2),... y (t n y ), -1
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000

u (t 1), u (t 2),...u (t nu )) (4)

Fig.17. Actual output

where the next value of the dependent output signal y(t) is

regressed on previous values of the output signal and
1

previous values of an independent (exogenous) input 0.8

signal. 0.6

0.4

B. Modeling muscle control using NARX based neural 0.2

network 0

In this section NARX based neural network is used to -0.2

model the muscle control. As before, a pseudo random -0.4

signal (PRBS) was employed for stimulating the -0.6

motoneuron and muscle displacement was recorded as -0.8

output. The input to the system is depicted in Fig. 16. -1

0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000

Fig.. 18 NARX network Output

The MSE (Mean Square Error) calculation was carried

out by MSE command and we got MSE=0.092 which is
acceptable for the training phase
VII. IDENTIFICATION WITH COMBINED ARX- 1
NARX STRUCTURE
0.8

A. Introduction 0.6

Significant nonlinear behavior of system may result in 0.4

poor predictive performance by linear models. One idea 0.2

is to include a nonlinear estimator parallel with linear one. 0

So, nonlinear model picks up nonlinearities and raise the -0.2

performance. Thisleadstoapredictoroftheform -0.4

 -0.6

y sp (t ) = spT (t ) -0.8

-1
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000
where
Fig. 20.Identification input

sp = [1 2 .... n ] . T
1

0.8

While nonlinear modeling and linear modeling are 0.6

both powerful approaches by themselves, the 0.4

combination of the two methods can result in a fit 0.2
that is better than the original linear model. In our 0
case the linear part has ARX model structure and
-0.2
nonlinear part has NARX based neural network
-0.4
structure.Thenonlinearpartpicksupanyadditional
nonlinearitiesandnoiseintheresiduals[4]. -0.6

-0.8

sp (t | sp ) = y (t ) y sp (t | sp ) (5) -1
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000


Fig. 21. Thick: ARX output, Thin: Actual output
The architecture of this combination is presented in
Fig.26. Now, we add the NARX network to the model and let
it to pick up the nonlinearities and residues. At first step
we trained the NARX network with the system input and
the system error as target data. This process is shown in
Fig. 22.
1

0.8

0.6

0.4

Fig.19. Architecture of semi-physical models combined with 0.2
neural networks
0

B. Identification with combined ARX-NARX model -0.2

In this work we used ARX 4 4 1 as linear model for -0.4

linear part and the NARX - based neural network for -0.6
neural network part. -0.8
Estimation of the system with ARX 4 4 1 and error
-1
from actual data is shown in Fig. 21 (all data has been 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000

mapped to [-1 1] interval).

Fig. 22.Thin: NARX simulation of error, Thick: Actual error

ARX output is added with the NARX network output

(error). This has been shown in Fig.23.
 1.5

0.5

-0.5

-1

-1.5
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000

Fig.23. Thick: The model output, Thin: actual out put.

The MSE error in this case is 0.1204 which is less than

ARX model MSE.

VIII.CONCLUSION

Muscle control architecture has been modeled in

Simulink to get reliable and biological plausible results.
Then, different model structures in the form of ARX,
NARX- based neural network and combined ARX-NARX
model have been examined. The simulation results show
that better model estimations can be obtained by using the
combined ARX - NARX networks. This is due to ability
of combined model structure to model nonlinear
dynamical systems. However training phase of NARX
network is time consuming and the network wont
converge soon. But, this can not be taken as a significant
problem because modeling procedure is done in an offline
manner.

REFERENCES
[1] Jiping He, Maltenfort, M.G., Qingjun Wang, Hamm, Learning
from biological systems: modeling neural control, IEEE Control
Systems Magazine, Volume 21, Issue 4, Aug 2001 Pages: 55 69
[2] J.M. Nightingale, E.M Sedgewick, Control of movement via
skeletal muscles, IEE Control Engineering Series 11, Biological
systems, modeling and control, 1979, pages 84 - 108
[3] Lennart Ljung, System Identification - Theory For the User,
2nd ed, PTR Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, N.J., 1999
[4] Braun, M.W., Rivera, D.E., Stenman, A., Foslien, W, Comparison
of global nonlinear models and model-on-demand estimation
applied to identification of aRTP wafer reactor, Proceedings of
the 38th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control 1999, Volume
4, Page(s):3950 - 3955

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