Are low cost Brain Computer Interface headsets ready for motor imagery applications?

Abstract

Low cost electroencephalography (EEG) headset devices for brain data capturing are fast becoming a key instrument on Brain Computer Interface (BCI) applications. In spite of being a controller device initially developed for gaming, the research community has adopted them as a key element to gather EEG data. However, there have been little discussion about their performance when being compared with professional and research EEG headsets.This paper provides an assessment of one of these devices, the Emotiv EPOC, on a motor imagery problem. As a benchmark, the data and results presented for the Data Set V of the BCI Competition III have been used, which were recorded with a professional Biosemi Active 2 EEG headset. From the perspective of a final working application, it is shown that the performance of this headset is comparable to that found in professional devices when using the same number of sensors and sensor positions for a three status motor imagery cognitive process. This finding implies an increase on the number of EEG headsets the researchers and manufacturers of BCI systems applied to motor imagery problems can integrate and a reduction of their cost.As part of this paper the Emotiv EPOC recorded raw and pre-processed datasets are published to allow further improvements and comparisons.