A Review of Current Approaches of Brain Computer Interfaces

Abstract

Since the first recordings of brain electrical activity more than 100 years ago remarkable contributions have been done to understand the brain functionality and its interaction with environment. Regardless of the nature of the brain-computer interface BCI, a world of opportunities and possibilities has been opened not only for people with severe disabilities but also for those who are pursuing innovative human interfaces. Deeper understanding of the EEG signals along with refined technologies for its recording is helping to improve the performance of EEG based BCIs. Better processing and features extraction methods, like Independent Component Analysis (ICA) and Wavelet Transform (WT) respectively, are giving promising results that need to be explored. Different types of classifiers and combination of them have been used on EEG BCIs. Linear, neural and nonlinear Bayesian have been the most used classifiers providing accuracies ranges between 60% and 90%. Some demand more computational resources like Support Vector Machines (SVM) classifiers but give good generality. Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) classifiers provide poor generality but low computational resources, making them optimal for some real time BCIs. Better classifiers must be developed to tackle the large patterns variability across different subjects by using every available resource, method or technology.