An Ethernet sniffer for On-line acquisition of EEG with the BrainNet36® device applied to a BCI

This paper presents an Ethernet sniffer programmed in ANSI C to export in an on-line way the electroencephalographic (EEG) data acquired with the device BrainNet36
^®
, which is a Brazilian EEG device for clinical and polysomnography purposes. The sniffer proved to be useful for off-line analysis of the EEG and also for on-line applications, as Brain Computer-Interfaces (BCIs). Despite its limitations and packet losses at around 1.7% due to noise, the off-line analysis of the EEG successfully replicated results of the literature regarding the Event-Related (De)Synchronization (ERD/ERS) and Evoked Potentials (EPs) calculated for mental tasks. For on-line applications the sniffer was used to program a single-switch BCI for on-line classification of motor and no motor mental tasks with high success rate. Nowadays, the BrainNet36
^®
device is being used for EEG research at many Brazilian universities, therefore, we hope that this article may encourage on-line applications. Finally, as the sniffer operation is explained here with examples, this text may serve as a reference guide for potential user's.