Towards portable SSVEP-based brain-computer interface using Emotiv EPOC and mobile phone

Abstract

Brain-computer interface (BCI) systems allow human beings to communicate with surroundings directly by their brain, without the involvement of peripheral nerves and muscles. Compared with other non-invasive BCI systems, SSVEP-based BCI systems have some significant advantages. However, most of current SSVEP-based BCI systems depends on expensive or non-portable devices, which limits its applications in daily life. To examine the possibility of developing a SSVEP-based BCI system that is portable, low-cost, and user-friendly, this paper presented an approach to developing a SSVEP-based BCI system which employs an Emotiv Epoc headset, as a low-cost and wireless EEG recording device, and a mobile phone, as a portable device to present the stimuli which are expected to evoke SSVEP component in the subject's EEG signals. To examine the feasibility of this approach, an experiment was conducted, and a novel method based on canonical correlation analysis was employed to analyze the recorded EEG data. The results demonstrated the promising future to develop portable, low-cost and user-friendly SSVEP-based BCI systems.