A New PLV-Spatial Filtering to Improve the Classification Performance in BCI Systems

Objective: The performance of an EEG-based brain-computer interface (BCI) system is highly dependent on signal preprocessing. This manuscript presents a filtering method to improve the feature classification algorithms typically used in BCI. Methods: A graph Laplacian quadratic form using the Phase Locking Value (PLV) is applied to generate a new filtered signal in the preprocessing stage. Results: The accuracy of the classification algorithms improved significantly (up to 27.18% in the BCI Competition IV dataset, and up to 42.56% with records made with an Emotiv EPOC+). In addition, the proposed filtering algorithm has similar or better results when compared with the Filter Bank Common Spatial Pattern (FBCSP), which has disadvantages in a multiclass classification. Conclusion: This paper shows how our PLV-based filtering between EEG channels could improve the performance of a BCI.