A compact low-power VLSI architecture for real-time sleep stage classification

A wearable-optimized implementation of a sleep stage classification algorithm that has low detection latency, high detection accuracy and low resource consumption is developed and successfully implemented on a low-power FPGA microsystem for closed-loop electrical brain stimulation. This implementation uses EEG and EMG signals as inputs and classifies stages of sleep. By structurally merging multichannel FIR and window averaging filters into one reconfigurable, multipurpose filter, the new implementation maintains a sleep detection accuracy of 79.7%, a REM detection sensitivity of 98.2%, a REM detection specificity of 89.2% and a detection latency of 0.982 ms, while consuming 6.8 times fewer logic elements and 96.28% less power compared with the current state of the art implementation. With its high performance and low resource usage, this implementation enables a low-power wearable microsystem to perform neural recording, real-time REM sleep stage detection, and closed-loop responsive brain stimulation as a tool to study the mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases.