Classification of motor imagery electroencephalography signals using continuous small convolutional neural network

AbstractAs an important part of brain‐computer interface (BCI), the electroencephalography (EEG) technology of motor imagery (MI) has been gradually recognized for its great theoretical value and practical application. In this study, in view of the different MI tasks corresponding to active region of the EEG signals, we adopt a two‐dimensional form including time, frequency, and electrode location information, then we design a classification method containing continuous small convolutional neural network (CSCNN). This method is mainly used for feature extraction through continuous small convolutional kernels and one rectangle convolutional kernel, and the softmax classifier for classification. In the experiment, classification accuracy and kappa value are used as evaluation criteria to verify the effectiveness of the method proposed in this study. For classification accuracy, BCI competition IV data set 2b is used to compare with the other five classification methods (CNN, CNN‐SAE, stacked autoencoder [SAE], support vector machine [SVM], and one‐dimensional convolution combined with gated recurrent unit [1DCGRU]). The results demonstrate that the overall accuracy of CSCNN is higher than other methods, and CSCNN obtains an average accuracy of 82.8%. For kappa value, BCI competition IV data set 2b is used to compare with the other three methods (filter bank common spatial pattern [FBCSP], Twin SVM, and CNN‐SAE). The performance of CSCNN is better with an average value of 0.663. Overall, the results show that CSCNN maintains a small number of parameters and improves the classification accuracy.