Brain Computer Interface based Robotic Arm Control
Muhammad Laiba Naeem Tehmina Aasim Raheel
Yasir Latif Hafeez
Computer Computer Computer Computer
Engineering Engineering Engineering Engineering
Department, Department, Department, Department,
UET Taxila, UET Taxila, UET Taxila, UET Taxila,
Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan
Abstract— Brain computer interface (BCI) establishes a
communication channel between a computer and a human brain
which converts brain activity to control signals. With the
advancement in research and technology, many BCI based
rehabilitation devices have been developed to augment, support,
and supplement human motion in a paralyzed or partially disabled
person. This would help in developing a smart society where a
disabled person will have the freedom to complete their day to day
tasks. In the proposed experimental setup, brain signals are used
to move the robotic arm and perform different tasks i.e., picking
and placing. Electroencephalography (EEG) signals are recorded
using a five-channel wearable headband. A total of five subjects
voluntarily participated in the study, with an informed consent.
The EEG data is recorded for a duration of twenty minutes for
each participant, and eight different statistical features are
extracted to detect clench and attention signals. Five different
classifiers namely support vector machine, Naive Bayes, K-nearest
neighbor, multilayer perceptron, and random forest are used. The
results are compared in terms of accuracy and error parameters.
The proposed method achieves significant results for smart robotic
arm control.
Keywords—robotic arm, EEG, BCI, wearable device, smart
intrface
I. INTRODUCTION
In the past few decades, technology procreation has
positively affected all aspects of life including the field of
neuroscience. Using the EEG signals from the brain, various
human machine interfaces (HMIs) such as robotic arm, artificial
hand, wheelchair etc., have been developed to help the
individuals with motor dysfunctions [1]. One of the most
commonly used HMI is the brain computer interfaces (BCI). In
1924, Hans Berger measured the brain waves using an EEG
device [2]. There exists a repetition and rhythm in the neural
activity, which is distinguished by the frequencies of the brain
waves that have several classes such as infra low waves (< 0.5
Hz), delta waves (0.5 – 3 Hz), theta waves (3 – 8 Hz), alpha
waves (8 – 12 Hz), beta waves (12 – 38 Hz), and gamma waves
(38 – 42 Hz) [3]. The replication of human motion with artificial
978-1-5386-2524-8/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
Sanay Muhammad Majdi Syed
Muhammad Awais Alnowami Muhammad
Umar Saeed Anwar
Computer CVSSP, Department of Software
Engineering University of Nuclear Engineering
Department, Surrey, Engineering, Department,
UET Taxila, Surrey, UK Faculty of UET Taxila,
Pakistan Engineering, Pakistan
King
Abdulaziz
University,
Jaddah
limbs began in early 1950’s in the field of military and medicine
[4]. Similarly, neuro-prosthetic devices have been developed
for wrists, upper and lower limbs, and for assisting gait [5]. L.A.
Farewell and E. Donchin demonstrated in a study, in 1988, that
people can spell words on a screen using the P300 based event
related potentials (ERPs) [6]. An EEG-BCI based wheelchair
has provided the much-needed real-time control to the severely
paralyzed persons [7].
BCIs provide ease and comfort by controlling machines
through brain signals. They are made by integrating brain
signals to arrange brain potentials in a way so that no muscle
arbitration is required [8]. The intrusive approach of placing
electrodes inside the scalp is comparatively less appealing as
compared to the non-invasive approach in which electrodes are
placed on the scalp, which is used in many BCI based
restorative applications for a couple of crippled clients [9]. A
BCI based on EEG signals can be controlled by tweaks of the
EEG signals, which are incited by tasks involving motor
imagery and enables a user to move cursor on a screen [10].
Many neuro-prosthetic devices, such as artificial limb attached
to the human body and computer applications are developed by
designing an interface that translates brain signals to
appropriate control signals. 2D movement of robotic arm has
been done by the correlation of EEG maps with the brain
machine interface [11]. Non-invasive neural signals based
integrated robotic arm driven by three-dimensional hand
trajectories has also proved to be a feasible tool for paralyzed
people [12]. There are numerous vision based graphical
systems, which are developed by advanced telecommunication
research institute (ATR), including reformation of human
motions observed from multiple cameras and virtual kabuki
[13]. However, such systems are limited by the positioning of
the camera for obtaining images or videos and affected by
illumination problems. In contrast, BCI systems are non-
invasive and are feasible in the sense that they require EEG
signals from the brain, which are easier to acquire by the EEG
headset. BCI systems are employed in educational frameworks,
which uses EEG signals to decide the level of clearness of
contemplated data. Customized cooperation to every student is
set up as indicated by the resultant reaction experienced [14].
In this study, the methodology opted to design EEG-BCI
based robotic arm is to acquire the EEG signals from the human
brain using a 5-channel muse headband, which provides
accurate, real-time feedback on what is happening inside
Figure 1: The proposed EEG based system for robotic arm control.
The arm movement is based on clench and attention signals and
produces movement in 3 degree of freedom (DOF). In this
research, five different classifiers are used for the classification
of clench and attention signal i.e., Naïve Bayes, support vector
machine (SVM), K-nearest neighbor (KNN), multilayer
perceptron (MLP), and random forest (RF). The methodology
and results are presented in the following subsections.
II. METHODOLOGY
In general, BCI systems are divided into four phases i.e.,
acquisition of data, preprocessing the acquired data, extracting
features, and classification. The proposed EEG based robotic
arm follows the same four phases. Figure 1 shows the steps
followed in the proposed methodology and the details of each
section are given in the following subsections.
A. EEG Data Acquisition
In the first step, data is acquired by an experiment
conducted to control the robotic arm using EEG signals. Five
subjects participated in the study, consisting of two females and
three males having and average age of 21.5 years. At start of the
data acquisition process, the participants are briefly informed
about the aims and objectives of the project and a written
consent is taken. The experiment is conducted in an isolated
room to prevent any external distractions.
During the experiment, a video instructing to perform
clench, rest, and attention by showing mind focusing games are
shown to the participants each with a time difference of 10
seconds. The video is played on an LED screen and based on
the type of video the subjects are instructed to perform the
action as shown for every 10 seconds. A 20-minutes long data
recording for EEG signals is performed for each subject.
The sampling rate of the acquired signals is 256 Hz and the
output of the cognitive software is sent to the ARDUINO UNO
board to control the robotic arm. The ARDUINO
the brain when a person meditates. It is a latest EEG tool
that is used for the measurement of level of attention, conscious
thoughts, and facial expressions to wirelessly control the
physical or software devices. The EEG signals acquired through
Muse Headband are then modified, filtered, digitized, and
processed.
microcontroller is generally used in control projects and is
chosen because of its open-source nature. Finally, a driving
signal is sent to the set of servo motors within the robotic arm to
perform an action of picking and placing a bottle.
B. Pre-processing
The acquired EEG data is stored as floating-point values
which are directly converted from the unsigned 14-bit analog to
digital converter output. These floating-point values cause DC
level problem to the signal which occurs at 4200 µV
approximately. For removal of this DC offset, before
performing any signal processing such as fast Fourier
transform, it is required to apply DC offset removal. The
simplest method for the removal of DC offset is to subtract the
average value of the signal from the entire data channel,
although this is the least accurate method. Ideally, it is required
to apply a first order high-pass filter of 0.16Hz to remove the
background signal. This also removes the long-term drift,
which is not achieved by the average subtraction method.
C. Feature Extraction
After preprocessing phase, the next step is to extract
features from the acquired data. There are two common types
of features that can be extracted i.e., time domain and frequency
domain. In this research, only time domain features are used,
since the computation time required to compute these features
is less. Let S(t) represents the acquired signal, then the features
can be calculated [15] as follows,
The maximum amplitude of the signal S(t) is calculated
as,
= max | ( )| (1)
The minimum amplitude of the signal S (t) is calculated
as,
= min | ( )| (2)
The absolute amplitude (AAMP) is calculated using,
 Table 1: Comparison of various performance parameters.
78%
Classifi Kappa MAE RMSE RAE RRSE 77%
er % % 76% 77%
SVM 0.6281 0.2736 0.3542 66 77.8 75%
NB 0.5751 0.1719 0.3934 41.46 86.42 74% 75% 75%
RF 0.5751 0.1658 0.2901 40.07 63.72 73% 74%
KNN 0.6061 0.1657 0.2896 40 63.63 72% 73%
MLP 0.5967 0.1668 0.2897 40.23 63 71%
SVM NB RF KNN MLP
AAMP = | | (3)
The average (avg) of the signal S(t) is calculated using, Figure 2: Accuracy comparison of classifiers used.
∑ ( ) (4) 4. For the classification of data, neural networking
where ∑S(t) demonstrates the whole of size of the considerable algorithms are highly efficient. It is difficult to formulate a
number of tests and N means the aggregate number of samples perfect algorithmic solution that closely matches the human
in time interval t. neuronal system MLP can extract relevant signal in noise
The power (P) of the acquired signal is calculated as, presence with low computational complexity and with higher
∑| ( )| (5) classification accuracy [19].
where T is the time period. The energy (E) calculation of the 5. K-Nearest Neighbor classifier varies by different
acquired signal is done as follows, values of k. KNN uses non-parametric classifying method. The
training pattern is mapped in d-dimensional feature space in the
∑| ( )| (6) training phase of the classifier. With unknown and random
The power (P) of the EEG signal is used by the Variance (V) of samples, KNN chooses the most closely/nearest neighbors for
the EEG signal. Usually, the variance is calculated as, K samples as stated in weighing metric and weighing strategy.
∑( μ) (7) In training phase, all samples of a class which are neighbors of
To reduce the complexity of the system, another feature named the K are counted. As per rule, the unknown samples during the
Kurtosis is used and is calculated as, testing phase are assigned to a class and when the strategy opted
∑ ( ) is random and the class is chosen randomly, then the rule is
K= n (8) broken of assigning class to unknown samples [20].
(∑ (( ) )

D. Feature Classification III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Feature classification is the final step in a BCI system.
There are different types of algorithm which are used to classify
the data i.e., supervised learning and unsupervised learning. In
this study, a supervised learning technique is followed.
A classifier from each category is chosen for the classification
purpose. The following five classifiers are used:
1. Support vector machine classifier has been executed
for the assurance of the mental tasks performed by the user. The
SVM classifier is observed to be an exceptionally valuable
strategy for information arrangement. Keeping in mind the end
goal to play out the characterization, SVM uses hyper-planes
for gathering them in a high dimensional space to recognize the
diverse class to order [16].
2. Naive Bayes classifier is implemented for the
probability computation that a sample has a place with a class
and it is allocated to the most likely class by comparison of
combination of features with a specific threshold value [17].
3. The random forest has a performance that is found to
be comparable with ensemble techniques such as bagging and
boosting. Due to the inherent parallel nature of random forest it
is also used in parallel implementations using multithreading,
multi-core, and parallel architectures [18].
After extracting features from the acquired signal, those
features are classified according to certain parameters and
classifiers. The used classifiers in this study are Naive Bayes,
SVM, KNN, MLP and Random forest. 10-fold cross validation
is applied against each classifier that divides all the instances in
to 10 equal folds and each fold is used only once as a testing
data whereas, other folds are used for training purpose. After
classifications, different results are obtained to be compared.
Results are compared in terms of Kappa statistics, mean
absolute error (MAE), Root mean squared error (RMSE),
relative absolute error (RAE), root relative squared error
(RRSE), and weighted average of detailed accuracy by class,
confusion matrices and at the end accuracy. From table 1 it is
evident that SVM classifier is better than all others in terms of
kappa values, MAE, RMSE, RAE and RRSE. Similarly,
weighted average values of precision, recall and F-measure
against each classifier are shown in Figure 2. SVM proved to
be much better in terms of precision, recall and F-measure
values as compared to other classifiers. From Table 1 it can be
identified that Kappa and mean absolute error values of SVM
are higher than the other defined algorithms. From all these
results, SVM is proved as the most accurate algorithm for the
classification of clench and attention signal.
 Table 2: Confusion matrix for different classifiers for three states including rest, clench and attention.

Predicted Rest state Clench Attention

Actual SVM NB RF KNN MLP SVM NB RF KNN MLP SVM NB RF KNN MLP
Rest State 261 261 261 261 261 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Clench 0 0 0 0 0 75 61 62 78 77 54 68 67 51 52
Attention 0 0 0 0 0 65 68 69 75 77 60 57 56 50 48

0.78
0.77
0.76
0.75
0.74
0.73
0.72
0.71
SVM NB RF KNN MLP
Precision Recall F Measure
Figure 3: Precision, recall and F-measure for different
classifiers.
From figure 3, it is observed that SVM is the highest
accurate algorithm with 77% accuracy. The graph in Figure 3 is
the weighted average of the precision, recall and F measures for
five different classifiers i.e., SVM, NB RF, KNN and MLP.
From results of these three parameters it is observed that SVM
has the highest values of Precision, Recall and F measures. It
also proves that SVM is the most accurate and best resulting
algorithm in this study while comparing with other algorithms.
In these results, the lowest value relevant to weighted average
is of Naive Bayes Confusion matrices against each classifier are
given below and describe the true positive, true negative, false
positive and false negatives against each class. It is evident
from Table 2, that SVM classification algorithm has highest
true positive rate as compared to others. From confusion
matrices of all algorithms one can observe that rest signal is
identified correctly by all the classifiers with 100% accuracy.
IV. CONCLUSION
The objective of the study has been to develop an application
that will be used by paralyzed persons for the movement of the
robotic arm controlled by brain signals. In this study, EEG
signals of users are used to move the robotic arm control.
Clench and attention signals are detected using five different
classifiers namely SVM, N.B, KNN, MLP and R.F. Among
these, SVM proved to be the best algorithm to detect
andclassify the signals with highest accuracy of 77%. In future,
out of lab environments will be used to move the robotic arm
and to control its direction. Degree of freedom can be increased
and type of signals used to control the arm can be varied.
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