A Novel Fast ICA-FBCCA Algorithm and Convolutional Neural Network for Single-Flicker SSVEP-Based BCIs

Brain-computer interface (BCI) systems have been developed to assist individuals with neuromuscular disorders to communicate with their surroundings using their brain signals. One attractive branch of BCI is steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP), which has acceptable speed and accuracy and is non-invasive. However, SSVEP-based EEG signals suffer from eye-fatigue problems, resulting in artifacts that affect the accuracy of the system. Thus, researchers are still working to improve SSVEP-based BCI systems. This paper proposes robust machine-learning algorithm for single-flicker SSVEP detection. A novel approach based on fast independent component analysis and filter-bank canonical correlation analysis (fast ICA-FBCCA) is developed to extract features from the single-flicker SSVEP signal. The clean features learned by fast ICA-FBCCA are then applied to a discrete wavelet transform (DWT) technique and fed to a convolutional neural network (CNN) with only one convolutional layer and a smaller number of parameters. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is evaluated using two datasets. The results were evaluated using two datasets. The findings clearly demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms traditional methods, with average target recognition accuracy and standard deviation values of 97 ± 3.1% among 6 subjects for dataset 1 and 82.12 ± 10.7% among 12 subjects for dataset 2. Overall, these findings suggest that the proposed method is a promising approach for improving the accuracy and reliability of the single-flicker SSVEP-based BCI systems.