Using EEG artifacts for BCI applications

Abstract

Brain computer interface (BCI) is about the communication channel between the brain of a human subject and a computerized device. Electroencephalography (EEG) signals are the primary choice as the sources of interpreting the intention of the human subject. EEG signals have a long history of being used in human health for the purposes of studying brain activities and medical diagnosis. EEG signals are very weak and are subject to the contamination from many artifact signals. For the applications in human health, true EEG signals, without the contamination, is highly desirable. However, for the purposes of BCI, where stable patterns from the source signals are critical, the origins of the signals are of less concern. In this paper, we propose a BCI, which is simple to implement and easy to use, by taking the advantage of EEG artifacts, generated by a number of purposely designed voluntary facial muscle movements.