Towards EEG-Based Brain-Controlled Modular Robots: Preliminary Framework by Interfacing OpenVIBE, Python and V-REP for Simulate Modular Robot Control

One of the main problems in Brain Computer Interface (BCI) systems is the non-stationary behavior of the electroencephalography (EEG) signals causing problems in real time applications. Another common problem in BCI systems is the situation where the labeled data are scarce. In this study, we take a semi-supervised learning perspective and propose solving both types of problems by updating the BCI system with labels obtained from the outputs of the classifier. To test the approach, data from motor imagery BCI system are used. Attributes extracted from EEG signals are classified with Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) and Support Vector Machines (SVM). With respect to the static classifiers, accuracy was improved approximately 4% using the proposed adaptation approach in the case of a training dataset. Even though the difference between the performance of static and adaptive classifiers decreases as the size of training data increases, the accuracy of our proposed adaptive classifier remains higher. The proposed approach has also improved the performance of a BCI system around 4% in the case of non-stationary signals as well.

Brain Computer Interface (BCI) systems have gained great visibility in the last years as they represent a quite innovative way of communication and a new instrument aimed at exploring brain functions. A lot of research labs are developing their own BCI system, everyone being involved in some particular aspects of them. At the "Tor Vergata" University our purpose is to develop tools for the evaluation and the optimization of the performances of BCI systems and to delineate some criteria for the analysis and implementation of different BCI systems; also we have defined file formats for BCI data in order to allow the sharing of tools among groups and to create models for the generalization and therefore the unification of the resources. All the tools and routines mentioned are part of the Body Language Framework++ 2.0.

Brain Computer Interfacing (BCI) systems, which are a new communicating channel between humans and the computers are growing rapidly. One such a method is based on the Steady State Visual Evoked Potentials (SSVEP), which can be recorded during visual stimulating of the subject by a twinkling light source with a fixed frequency. An important parameter to be considered is the effect of the inter-sources distance on the accuracy of such BCI systems. In particular inter-sources (LEDs) distances of 4, 14, 24, 44 and 64 cm when the sources plane is located 60 cm away from the subject's eyes (producing inter-sources visual angles of 3.8°, 13.4°, 22.6°, 40.2° and 56° respectively) were examined. In addition, four different sweep lengths of 0.5, 1, 2 and 3 seconds are considered. In addition, due to the usage of the AR models for feature extraction from the SSVEP signals, selection of the best AR model together with the best classifier among the LDA, the SVM and the Naive Bayes are studied. It is showed that the BCI system with D=44 cm, AR order of 13 and either the LDA or the SVM classifiers could produce the best results compared to the other cases.

The structure and functioning of the human brain has always attracted the attention of scientists. In the past 10-20 years, one of the popular areas of study related to the human brain is the Brain Computer Interface (BCI) systems. Different brain monitoring techniques such as EEG, fNIRS, MEG can be used to observe human brain activities in BCI systems. In addition to the differences in monitoring methods in BCI systems, the focus of system operation may also change. In some BCI systems, it may be preferable to focus on Motor Imagery in another system, while the focus is on the P300 signals in EEG data. This requires a differentiation between the systems during the operational phases of the BCI system. One of the most significant points of system differentiation is the classification stage of the BCI system. In this study, a compilation of classification methods commonly used in Brain Computer Interface systems based on EEG based Motor Imagery will be carried out. This study will provide researchers with information about the methods that can be used in their own systems for classification in Brain Computer Interface systems based on EEG based Motor Imagery.

Brain computer interface (BCI) system is field of neurotechnology that convey command from human brain to a computer. BCI is currently most growing field in the research area. BCI applications have different field such as medical, education, neuroergonomics, self-regulation, games and entertainment, production, security as well as marketing. Electronic devices can be controlled using brain signal called electroencephalography (EEG) to record electrical activity of the brain. The P300 wave is a positive peak of an event related potential (ERP) that occurs 300ms recorded by EEG. One major approach in the BCI research field is the P300 based oddball paradigm, subjects identify infrequent target stimuli within a series of rapid presented standard stimuli. The P300-speller is a widely used BCI system that allows users to communicate characters by focused attention. In our study, we are focusing on BCI system architecture different applications of BCI specifically P300 speller which classifies P300 waves and recognize targeted character, on the dataset II of the third BCI competition.

EMG and EOG artifacts in brain computer interface systems: A survey

The modern commercial industry is increasingly dependent on the analysis of vast data records. Analysing big electroencephalogram (EEG) signal data (called brain signal data) plays an important role in a wide variety of applications such as healthcare practices, brain computer interface (BCI) systems, innovative education, privacy and security, and biometrics. The key objective of this paper is to establish a methodological framework for identifying communicative intentions of motor disabled people from EEG data for application in BCI systems. The proposed framework is designed based on common spatial pattern (CSP) data method and optimized ensemble (OE) machine learning method for the application of BCI technologies. The CSP method is used for discovering important features from EEG data and finally the extracted features are fed as an input to optimized ensemble (OE) method. The proposed method was tested on BCI Competition III dataset IVa, which contains motor imagery-based EEG signal data. The experimental results show that our proposed method can handle brain signal big data for identifying communicative intentions for an advanced BCI system. We compared the performance of our proposed method with several other existing methods. In comparison with other established methods, our method achieves higher classification accuracy performance. This research assists the experts in processing and analysing EEG signals for BCI applications. It also supports technologists to create a new EEG data analyser for BCI systems.KeywordsElectroencephalographyBrain computer interfaceCommon spatial patternMachine learning

During recent years there has been a growing interest in Brain Computer Interface (BCI) systems as an alternative means of interaction with the external world for people with severe motor disabilities. The use of the P300 event-related potentials as control feature allows users to choose between various options (letters or icons) requiring a very short calibration phase. The aim of this work is to improve performances and flexibility of P300 based BCIs. An efficient BCI system should be able to understand user's intentions from the ongoing EEG, abstaining from doing a selection when the user is engaged in a different activity, and changing its speed of selection depending on current user's attention level. Our self-paced system addresses all these issues representing an important step beyond the classical synchronous P300 BCI that forces the user in a continuous control task. Experimentation has been performed on 10 healthy volunteers acting on a BCI-controlled domestic environment in order to demonstrate the potential usability of BCI systems in everyday life. Results show that the self-paced BCI increases information transfer rate with respect to the synchronous one, being very robust, at the same time, in avoiding false negatives when the user is not engaged in a control task.

In recent years, asynchronous brain computer interface (BCI) systems have been utilized in many domains such as robot controlling, assistive technology, and rehabilitation. In such BCI systems, movement intention detection algorithms are used to detect movement desires. In recent years, movement-related cortical potential (MRCP), an electroencephalogram (EEG) pattern representing voluntary movement intention, attracts wide attention in movement intention detection. Unfortunately, low MRCP detection accuracy makes the asynchronous BCI system impractical for real usage. In order to develop an effective MRCP detection algorithm, EEG data have to be properly preprocessed. In this work, we investigate the relationship and effects of three factors including frequency bands, spatial filters, and classifiers on MRCP classification performance to determine best settings. In particular, we performed a systematic performance investigation on combinations of five frequency bands, five spatial filters, and six classifiers. The EEG data were acquired from subjects performing series of self-paced ankle dorsiflexions. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) statistical test was performed on F1 scores to investigate effects of these three factors. The results show that frequency bands and spatial filters depend on each other. The combinations directly affect the F1 scores, so they have to be chosen carefully. The results can be used as guidelines for BCI researchers to effectively design a preprocessing method for an advanced asynchronous BCI system, which can assist the stroke rehabilitation.

Event Abstract Back to Event Analysis and classification of EEG signals for brain computer interfaces Ugur Halici1*, E. Agi1, C. Özgen1 and I. Ulusoy1 1 Computer Vision and Intelligent Systems Research Laboratory, Middle East Technical University, Turkey Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) are systems developed in order to control devices by using only brain signals. Depending on the application, the device to be controlled might be a neuroprothesis, a wheel-chair or a computer. In BCI systems, different mental activities to be performed by the users are associated with different actions on the device to be controlled. The neurophysiologic brain signals produced as results of these mental activities are collected by a data acquisition device and converted to digital form. Electroencephalogram (EEG) is the most common technique employed for data acquisition in BCI systems today, due to its time-space resolution, its price and its easiness in use when compared to the other acquisition techniques. The digital brain signals collected are processed for feature extraction and then classified in order to decide on the associated action. A control signal produced according to the decision is used to change the state of the device to be controlled. Providing a feedback signal informing the user about the new state of the controlled device completes the BCI cycle. The early BCI systems were designed to work on pre-defined neurophysiologic features, where a feedback produced by a fixed set-up was provided to the system users. In these early BCI systems, the users should learn by themselves how to produce neurophysiologic signals in order to control the system. In several studies, it is reported that weeks, even months may be needed in order the user to learn how to produce these signals by adaptation of their brain. Recently, BCI systems in which machine learning algorithms employed for adapting the BCI system by using user specific signals are started to emerge. In several studies, it is shown that the adaptation of the BCI systems in this way reduces drastically the time required the user to able to produce appropriate signals and adaptation time in terms of days, even minutes are reported [1-4] The aim of this study is to analyze EEG signals collected for BCI purposes by using techniques Principal Component Analysis, Fisher Linear Discriminant Analysis, and Independent Component Analysis in order to reduce the dimension of the feature vectors obtained by sampling EEG signals in an representative manner and then classify the low dimension feature vectors obtained in this way by using Neural Networks and Support Vector Machines, which are able to learn through samples. The experimental studies are still going on for feature extraction and classification. The experimental results obtained will be presented in the final paper for comparison purposes.

Electroencephalography (EEG) is a technique used to observe brain activity by measuring the dynamic changes of the electric field induced by neurons' activity. Brain-computer interface (BCI) systems are used in cognitive psychology examinations measuring the changes of brain activities. This paper presents a validation methodology to characterize BCI systems with wireless communication interface and the applicability on a preselected BCI system. This way, the delay, the functionality, and the frequency selectivity can be determined of the overall BCI system, taking into account the effect of the hardware, the software, and the electrodes, avoiding noise artifacts. The presented and validated BCI system proved to be successfully applied in ERP EEG measurements such as steady-state visually evoked potential, pattern-reversal visually evoked potential, and P300 event-related potential.

Nowadays, brain-computer interface (BCI) systems are frequently used to connect individuals who have lost their mobility with the outside world. These BCI systems enable individuals to control external devices using brain signals. However, these systems have certain disadvantages for users. This paper proposes a novel approach to minimize the disadvantages of visual stimuli on the eye health of system users in BCI systems employing visual evoked potential (VEP) and P300 methods. The approach employs moving objects with different trajectories instead of visual stimuli. It uses a light-emitting diode (LED) with a frequency of 7 Hz as a condition for the BCI system to be active. The LED is assigned to the system to prevent it from being triggered by any involuntary or independent eye movements of the user. Thus, the system user will be able to use a safe BCI system with a single visual stimulus that blinks on the side without needing to focus on any visual stimulus through moving balls. Data were recorded in two phases: when the LED was on and when the LED was off. The recorded data were processed using a Butterworth filter and the power spectral density (PSD) method. In the first classification phase, which was performed for the system to detect the LED in the background, the highest accuracy rate of 99.57% was achieved with the random forest (RF) classification algorithm. In the second classification phase, which involves classifying moving objects within the proposed approach, the highest accuracy rate of 97.89% and an information transfer rate (ITR) value of 36.75 (bits/min) were achieved using the RF classifier.

A brain-computer interface(BCI) system is a communication channel which transforms a subject's thought process into command signals to control various devices. These systems use electroencephalographic signals or the neuronal activity of many single neurons. The presented study deals with an efficient analysis method of neuronal signals from a BCI System using an independent component analysis(ICA) algorithm. The BCI system was implemented to generate event signals coding movement information of the subject. To apply the ICA algorithm, we obtained the perievent histograms of neuronal signals recorded from prefrontal cortex(PFC) region during target-to-goal(TG) task trials in the BCI system. The neuronal signals were then smoothed over 5ms intervals by low-pass filtering. The matrix of smoothed signals was then rearranged such that each signal was represented as a column and each bin as a row. Each column was also normalized to have a unit variance. As a result, we verified that different patterns of the neuronal signals are dependent on the target position and predefined event signals.

Brain-computer interface (BCI) systems have emerged as an augmentative technology that can provide a promising solution for individuals with motor dysfunctions and for the elderly who are experiencing muscle weakness. Steady-state visually evoked potentials (SSVEPs) are widely adopted in BCI systems due to their high speed and accuracy when compared to other BCI paradigms. In this paper, we apply combined magnitude and phase features for class discrimination in a real-time SSVEP-based BCI platform. In the proposed real-time system users gain control of a motorised bed system with seven motion commands and an idle state. Experimental results amongst eight participants demonstrate that the proposed real-time BCI system can successfully discriminate between different SSVEP signals achieving high information transfer rates (ITR) of 82.73 bits/min. The attractive features of the proposed system include noninvasive recording, simple electrode configuration, excellent BCI response and minimal training requirements.

It is commonly believed that brain has faster reaction speed and higher reaction accuracy on visual-auditory bimodal stimuli than single modal stimuli in current neuropsychological researches, while visual-auditory bimodal stimuli (VABS) do not show corresponding superiority in BCI system. This paper aims at investigating whether semantically congruent stimuli could also get better performance than semantically incongruent stimuli in Brain Computer Interface (BCI) system. Two VABS based paradigms (semantically congruent or incongruent) were conducted in this study. 10 healthy subjects participated in the experiment in order to compare the two paradigms. The results indicated that the higher Event-related potential (ERP) amplitude of semantic incongruent paradigm were observed both in target and non-target stimuli. Nevertheless, we didn't observe significant difference of classification accuracy between congruent and incongruent conditions. Most participants showed their preference on semantically congruent condition for less workload needed. This finding demonstrated that semantic congruency has positive effect on behavioral results (less workload) and insignificant effect on system efficiency.