No abstract

No abstract

Abstract. Objective: Multiresolution analysis (MRA) offers a useful framework for signal analysis in the temporal and spectral domains, although commonly employed MRA methods such as Daubechies wavelets may not be the best approach for brain computer interface (BCI) applications. Approach: Hereby we propose the use of a lifting scheme transform over graphs and a tailored simple graph representation for EEG data which results on a MRA system where temporal, spectral and spatial characteristics are used to extract motor imagery features. The transformed data is processed within a simple experimental framework to test the classification performance. Main Results: The proposed method can significantly improve the classification results obtained by various wavelet families using the same methodology. Preliminary results using common spatial patterns as feature extraction method show that we can achieve comparable classification accuracy to more sophisticated methodologies. From the analysis of the results we can obtain insights into the pattern development in the EEG data, which provide useful information for feature basis selection and thus for improving classification performance. Significance: Applying wavelet lifting over graphs is a new approach for handling BCI data. The inherent flexibility of the lifting scheme could lead to new approaches based on the proposed method which could further improve the classification performance here presented.

This paper presents a simple self-paced motor imagery based brain-computer interface (BCI) to control a robotic wheelchair. An innovative control protocol is proposed to enable a 2-class self-paced BCI for wheelchair control, in which the user makes path planning and fully controls the wheelchair except for the automatic obstacle avoidance based on a laser range finder when necessary. In order for the users to train their motor imagery control online safely and easily, simulated robot navigation in a specially designed environment was developed. This allowed the users to practice motor imagery control with the core self-paced BCI system in a simulated scenario before controlling the wheelchair. The self-paced BCI can then be applied to control a real robotic wheelchair using a protocol similar to that controlling the simulated robot. Our emphasis is on allowing more potential users to use the BCI controlled wheelchair with minimal training; a simple 2-class self paced system is adequate with the novel control protocol, resulting in a better transition from offline training to online control. Experimental results have demonstrated the usefulness of the online practice under the simulated scenario, and the effectiveness of the proposed self-paced BCI for robotic wheelchair control.

Due to the non-stationarity of EEG signals, online training and adaptation are essential to EEG based brain-computer interface (BCI) systems. Self-paced BCIs offer more natural human-machine interaction than synchronous BCIs, but it is a great challenge to train and adapt a self-paced BCI online because the user's control intention and timing are usually unknown. This paper proposes a novel motor imagery based self-paced BCI paradigm for controlling a simulated robot in a specifically designed environment which is able to provide user's control intention and timing during online experiments, so that online training and adaptation of the motor imagery based self-paced BCI can be effectively investigated. We demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed paradigm with an extended Kalman filter based method to adapt the BCI classifier parameters, with experimental results of online self-paced BCI training with four subjects.

No abstract

For robotic manipulators that are redundant or with high degrees of freedom (dof), an analytical solution to the inverse kinematics is very difficult or impossible. Pioneer 2 robotic arm (P2Arm) is a recently developed and widely used 5-dof manipulator. There is no effective solution to its inverse kinematics to date. This paper presents a first complete analytical solution to the inverse kinematics of the P2Arm, which makes it possible to control the arm to any reachable position in an unstructured environment. The strategies developed in this paper could also be useful for solving the inverse kinematics problem of other types of robotic arms.

In this paper, a new scheme for constructing parsimonious fuzzy classifiers is proposed based on the L2support vector machine (L2-SVM) technique with model selection and feature ranking performed simultaneously in an integrated manner, in which fuzzy rules are optimally generated from data by L2-SVM learning. In order to identify the most influential fuzzy rules induced from the SVM learning, two novel indices for fuzzy rule ranking are proposed and named as αvalues and ω -values of fuzzy rules in this paper. The α -values are defined as the Lagrangian multipliers of the L2-SVM and adopted to evaluate the output contribution of fuzzy rules, while the ω -values are developed by considering both the rule base structure and the output contribution of fuzzy rules. As a prototype based classifier, the L2-SVM based fuzzy classifier evades the curse of dimensionality in high-dimensional space in the sense that the number of support vectors, which equals the number of induced fuzzy rules, is not related to the dimensionality. Experimental results on high-dimensional benchmark problems have shown that by using the proposed scheme the most influential fuzzy rules can be effectively induced and selected, and at the same time feature ranking results can also be obtained to construct parsimonious fuzzy classifiers with better generalization performance than the well-known algorithms in literature.