International Conference on Global Trends in Engineering, Technology and Management (ICGTETM-2016)
Data acquisition through EEG for meditative states in BCI
using non-invasive EmotivEpocNeuroheadset
Seema Kute#1Dr.SonaliKulkarni*2
#
Research Student , Assistant Professor c
CS&IT DepartmentDr.BabasahebAmbedkarMarathwadaUniversity,Aurangabad,India
Abstract: From Many years ago, it was just imagination
that the machines are handled and controlled by the human
brain information that is generated by the human brain but
now this is possible in current time. In this paper we can
review the parts of brain and working of brain according to
that which specific part of brain is responsible for which
movement, action and emotionas or sensitive information .
Straight transmission between the brain and external device
and it is focused on the reading of the neural activity of the
brain based on the non invasive technique with the help of
multichannel electeoencephalograph(EEG) and also give
the basic information of the low cost equipment Emotiv
EPOC neuroheadset based on the EEG technology.
Keywords:
Brain
Computer
Interface(BCI),
Electroencephalography(EEG),
EmotivEpocNeuroheadset
I. BRAIN
Brain is the main part of body that makes human
being special in all living things Brain Controls or
handles all the human activities. Only just because of
brain we got new shape to our ideas, innovations and
ideas brain activities includes heart beat rate,
emotions, learning and control .[1]
planning movements are controlled by front
lobe.
Parietal lobe reacts to information obtained
from touch, pressure, temperature and pain.
It is also responsible for the visual attentions
and moving voluntarily.
Temporal
lobe
functions
include
smell,hearing and categorizing objects.
Occipital lo be is responsible for the
vision,identification of colour and movement
of an object.[2]
II. BCI- BRAIN COMPUTER INTERFACE
The advancement of technology has brought a new
reality. Today, the technology the allows humans to
use the electrical signals to record the brain activity to
interact with influence , or change their environments
is known as brain computer interface (BCI).[9]
Complex n/w activity precedes the order of the brain
to our muscles which requires a healthy brain, nerves
and musules. A BCI system serves as a communicate
channel between the brain and the outside world
directly.[6]
The Main working of BCI is to convert the person’s
intent into an outside action . According to the work
of Mason and Brich, the BCI System can be divided
into various functional components. [4]
Fig. 2 Functional components of Brain Computer InterfaceThe
main parts of any BCI System are signal acquisition system-
Fig. 1 Four major parts of brain
Brain consists of four major parts- Cerebrum,
cerebellum,cerebral cortex and the brain stem. Fig
shows the four major parts of brain it includes
Frontal lobe responds to emotional situation,
consciousness,problem solving, reasoning ,
ISSN: 2231-5381
It involves electrodes which pick up the electrical
activity of the brain and the amplifier and analog
filters.
Feature extractor-Coverts brain signals into
relevant feature components.
Feature translator -Classifies the feature
components into logical controls.
Control interface-Convert the logical controls
into semantic controls
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International Conference on Global Trends in Engineering, Technology and Management (ICGTETM-2016)
Device controller-Changes the semantic
controls to physical device commands which
differ from one.[7]
Invasive BCI systems interact with brain directly by
penetrating electrodes into the brain cortex. This
requires surgery and the results have to be obtained
with in stipulated time period. It is Expensive.
In Non Invasive BCI systems, the electrodes are
placed on the scalp and the brain activity is recorded
by using Electroencephalography (EEG). It is less
expensive than Invasive BCI system. [13]
A.
Phases of Brain Computer Interface
1. Signal
Acquisition:Electromyography
(EMG) signals, related to muscle activation or
Electroencephalography(EEG) signals, related to
brain activity are acquired from the user by means
of electrodes.[8]
Invasive signal acquisition requires surgery
to implant the sensors or electrodes onto the
brain cortex(See Figure 1). These electrodes
are implanted by opening the skull through a
proper
surgical
procedure
called
craniotomy.[8]Invasive signal acquisition
techniques give excellent quality of
signals[11].
Fig. 4 Figure 1: Invasive Signal Acquisition
Non-Invasive signal acquisition techniques
are used to capture the signals from the scalp
(see figure 4), by using the technologies like
electroencephalogram (EEG), functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI),
magneto encephalogram (MEG), P-300
based BCI etc.[10,11]
non-invasive technique provides lesser accuracy than
the invasive one due to the deflection caused by the
skull to acquire the signals generated by the neurons.
It has several advantages like no modification is
required in the scalp. And with minimal discomfort
and in any naturalistic conditions user can wear the
hardware for signal acquisition.
Among non-invasive Brain Computer Interfaces
(BCIs), electroencephalogram (EEG) has been the
most commonly used for them because EEG is
advantageous in terms of its simplicity and ease of use
which meets BCI specifications when considering
practical use.[11]
2. Feature Extraction:In the Feature Extraction
stage, the digitized signal received from the BCI
device is subjected to procedure in such a way that it
extract signal features (e.g., firing rate of a cortical
neuron, amplitude of an evoked potential, etc.). In the
Feature translation stage, a translation algorithm
translates these signal features into control signals that
are sent directly to the user application.[12]
3. Computer Interaction: The last phase of the BCI
system is to fire commands through brain for driving
any developed application. And for that it will use the
processed and analysed signals of the above two
stages and translate them into command signals. The
BCI system model supports any programming
language, any development environment, and any
operating system.[5]
The EmotivEpoc is a low cost Human-Computer
Interface (HCI) that is comprised of: (i) a
neuroheadset hardware device to acquire and
preprocess EEG and EMG user brainwaves, and (ii)
the software development kit (SDK) to process and
interpret these signals.[12]
III. EMOTIV EPOC NEUROHEADSET
The Emotiv EPOC Interface The EPOC is a low cost
Human-Computer Interface (HCI) that is comprised
of: (i) a neuroheadset hardware device to acquire and
preprocess EEG and EMG user brainwaves, and (ii)
the software development kit (SDK) to process and
interpret these signals. It can be purchased from
theEmotiv Company website for less than one
thousand
US
dollars.[3]
Fig. 5 (a) The Emotiv EPOC neuroheadset and the wireless USB
receiver
Fig. 3 Non-Invasive Signal Acquisition
ISSN: 2231-5381
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International Conference on Global Trends in Engineering, Technology and Management (ICGTETM-2016)
Fig. 5 (b) A picture that shows with intuitive colors the contact
quality of the neuroheadset on the user head
The neuroheadset acquires brain neuro-signals with
14 saline sensors placed on the user scalp. It also
integrates two internal gyroscopes to provide user
head position information. The communication of this
device with a PC occurs wirelessly by means of a
USB receiver. Emotiv provides software in two ways:
(i) some suites, or developed applications, with
graphical interface to process brain signals, to train
the system, and to test the neuroheadset; and (ii) an
application programing interface (API) to allow users
to develop C or C++ software to be used with the
neuroheadset.
The Emotiv EPOC can capture and process
brainwaves in the Delta (0.5–4 Hz), Theta (4–8 Hz),
Alpha (8–14 Hz), and Beta (14–26 Hz) bands. With
the information from signals in these bands, it can
detect expressive actions, affective emotions, and
cognitive actions. The expressive actions correspond
to face movements. Most movements have to be
initially trained by the user, and as the user supplies
more training data, the accuracy in the detection of
these actions typically improves. The eye and eyelidrelated expressions blink, wink, look left, and look
right cannot be trained because information about
these expressions relies on the Emotiv software. The
affective emotions detectable by the Emotiv EPOC
are engagement, instantaneous excitement, and longterm excitement. None of these three has to be trained.
Finally, the Emotiv EPOC works with 13 different
cognitive actions: the push, pull, left, right, up and
down directional movements, the clockwise, counterclockwise, left, right, forward and backward rotations
and a special action that makes an object disappear in
the user mind. Figure 5(a) shows an Emotiv EPOC
neuroheadset photograph, and Figure 5(b) shows with
intuitive colors the contact quality of the neuroheadset
on the user head. This picture was screen-captured
from a software application provided by Emotiv.[8]
When the person use this Emotive EPOC
neuroheadset the scalp of the person must be dry so
the proper signals are captured accuracy of the data is
increased.
This 14-channel hardware is used to acquire signals
from various electrodes placed on the human scalp at
ISSN: 2231-5381
AF3, F7, F3, FC5, T7, P7, O1, O2, P8,T8, FC6, F4,
F8 and AF4 positions, according to the international
10-20 system. Odd numbers of electrodes are reserved
for left hemisphere of the brain; even numbers of
electrodes are reserved for right hemisphere of the
brain. Two referencing electrodes CMS (on the left
side) and DRL (on the right side) are used for
reduction of noise in signal.[10]
IV. CONCLUSION
Many things we have to do if we capture the brain
signals and it is possible by using the Brain Computer
Interface (BCI) systems that can be used in various
application areas. Brain Computer Interface (BCI) is
able to handle and control the devices through brain
signals . We can use EmotivEpocneuroheadset for
capturing these brain signals in the form of
Electroencephalograhy(EEG) signals.
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