2016 International Conference on Frontiers of Information Technology
Effective Classification of EEG Signals using K-Nearest
Neighbor Algorithm
Umer I.Awan[1], U.H Rajput[2], Ghazaal Syed[3], Rimsha Iqbal[4], Ifra Sabat[5] , M.Mansoor[6]
[1-6]
Faculty of Engineering Science and Technology
Iqra University
Karachi, Pakistan
[3]
mgsyed@iqra.edu.pk
AbstractIn this research paper, an effective approach to classify
and extract feature vector of different facial expressions and
movements recorded using Non-invasive Electroencephalogram
(EEG) device is presented. EEG signals were obtained from 10
healthy persons between the age group of 18 to 45. Feature vectors
are based on a new approach that make use of Segmentation and
Selection (SnS) with Root Mean Square (RMS) to extract feature
vector of EEG activities. The classification is done by using K
nearest neighbor algorithm. The presented S-RMS (Segmentation
and Selection- Root Mean Square) method provides an accuracy
of 96.1% and gives better results when compared with others
approaches.
KeywordsEEG, KNN, IEMG, MAVS, RMS, S-RMS;
I. INTRODUCTION
The BCI Brain computer interface is a new technology
involving the communication between computer and the brain
of humans without getting in direct contact with the nervous
system of humans. Out of the countless uses of brain computer
interface most of the uses involve around paralyzed people who
are suffering from neuromuscular disorder. BCI information
generally is acquired by using electroencephalography
commonly known as EEG [1]. EEG is acquired from the
potentials which flows from millions of neurons present in the
brain of human being. These voltages generated in the process
can be extracted from the scalp of humans by using electrodes
placed on the scalp of human.
These signals are composed of mainly two types one is
external noise and the other is the brain activity. The external
noise is generated from environment equipment, for example
power line or light. The internal brain activity arises from human
activity such as left smirk, right smirk, clench and others. These
signals are all very low frequency signals of less the 32 Hz.
There propagation time, however differs from each other as the
reaction time of these and other expressions is different. Af3, F7,
F8, AF4 are being used to extract the signals from the brain.
Until now various methods have been used for classification of
brain signals obtained through electroencephalography and
electromyography. Independent component analysis has been
used in past to classify the different classes of signals [2]. This
was done by first differentiating them based upon their
frequency bands. Another method used was by using adaptive
filtration and recursive least square and fast recursive least
square in conjunction with each other the results shows that
FRLS is more efficient then RLS [3]. ICA has also been used
978-1-5090-5300-1/16 $31.00 2016 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/FIT.2016.28
in conjunction with oriented principal component analysis and
this leads to the fact that this method proves to be more efficient
than PCA based classification by a margin of 11% (PCA being
84%) [4]. the blind source separation method has also been used
to remove artifact in EMG signals [5]. Support vector machine
and double blind source separation method has also been used
[6].
Researchers have been working on using EEG device to provide
services for the disabled persons, for example control toy car,
wheel chair. This is being done in greater context for helping
disabled persons to even move towards a new era of technology
[7]. Bivariate mode decomposition has also been used for
classification [8]. Another method to remove eye blink signals
from EEG is to use CBSS algorithm [9]. SVM has also been
used in conjunction with blind source separation using second
order blind identification algorithm [10]. The comparison
between blind source separation with recursive least square
algorithm and it has proven that RLS has better accuracy than
BSS whether EOG reference signals are present or not [11].
MAVS and MAVS has also been used to extract feature vector
from EMG signals out of which MAVS has been found out to
give better results MAV[12].IEMG has also been used in order
to get feature vector from EEG signals[13].
In this paper an effective and simple approach to classify
various facial movements is given, the signals are extracted
from low resolution Emotiv device. Using specific set of EEG
signals, electronic devices can be controlled such as electronic
cars, electronic wheel chairs, and robotic arms. Feature
extraction has been done by using two different methods which
are segmented root mean square and graphical plotting of
signals. Classification was then done by using K nearest
neighbor algorithm.
K nearest neighbor algorithm is an algorithm which
uses non-parametric approach to classify the signal into
different classes. The answer is based upon the number of votes
from its neighbors which is one of the reasons it is called as
KNN.
This paper is composed in a way to make it easily
understandable for people who are not at expert level in brain
computer interface. After introduction experimental setup is
defined in section II followed by signal processing feature
extraction, classification process, results and conclusion in
sections III, IV, V and VI respectively.
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 II. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP Signals were preprocessed using band-pass and notch filter, to
In this study Emotiv EPOC+ was used to gather the make sure that the feature extraction is good enough to get
electroencephalography signals. The EEG signals were taken at reliable results, normalization was done on the signals.
the rate of 128 samples per second and filtered between the
range of 0.1 to 32 Hz using notch and band pass filters to get
accurate signals free from noise. We have used 14 electrodes
on the scalp of humans, according to international 10-20 system
as shown in the fig 1 including two reference electrodes P3 and
P4 namely CMS and DRL. Channels were as followed: AF3,
F7, F3, FC5, T7, P7, O1, O2, P8, T8, FC6, F4, F8 and AF4
(these are the names of the locations of electrodes as per 10-20
b international electrode system) as shown in Fig. 1.
Figure 2 Right Smirk Signal
Electroencephalography signals also known as EEG signals
were obtained from 10 healthy persons from the age group
between 18 to 45 years old at different time. Before recording
the signals, all of them were made to go through a training
program which includes to let their eyes closed and letting their
body relax. After which different samples were recorded,
including Right smirk, Left smirk, Clench, and no Action,
shown in Fig 2, Fig 3, Fig 4 and Fig 5 respectively. In whole
process they all were sitting in idle position. 50 samples were Figure 3 Left smirk signal
taken for each subject 25 of them were treated as training
samples and another 25 were treated as test sample of each
action and each person. 12 of these people were in an empty
dark room while the samples were being recorded and 12 others
were in empty room with optimum lightings. To even further
check the results one person was present in class full of
students. The table is presented below for the recorded signals.

Table 1 Training and trials

Class Actions Training Trails Test Trails Figure 4 Clench Signal

C1 Left Smirk 25 25
C2 Right Smirk 25 25
C3 Clench 25 25
C4 Idle 25 25

Figure 5 No action

These Fig 2, Fig 3, Fig 4 and Fig 5 are the waveforms for four
states including left smirk, right smirk, clench and idle, taken as
raw data which were then processed to get the results.

IV. FEATURE EXTRACTION

Figure 1 International 10-20 B electrode system
III. SIGNAL PRE-PROCESSING
The EEG samples were obtained on different times, which
can lead to problems regarding the values of the samples,
The conventional RMS method was used with the SnS
method to develop a feature vector.
A. Root mean square method
After the normalization process, EEG trail was passed
through band pass filters to receive signal with low noise levels
so that it can help us distinguish between the different samples.
The next step in feature extraction was to take the RMS value
of sample tests of data and plotting it on Matlab and seeing the
differences between the waves of the above mentioned facial

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expressions. The formula used for taking the mean of the data
is as follows:
(1)
This equation leads us to the point where we took our
decision for using F7 electrode as shown in Fig 1 for left smirk
and right smirk, and F3 electrode as shown in Fig 1 for clench
signals.
B. S RMS
In this method the result of previous used method was
further improved by doing the segmentation of the output. This
was done by chopping of the complete waveform in equal
segments and RMS of only those segments was calculated
which had maximum EEG amplitude using findpeaks function
on Matlab. After careful analysis of the data. As seen in Fig. 6,
X-Axis denotes time and Y-Axis denotes amplitude, this
method not only reduced the processing cost in term of power
but also in term of time as well. After segmentation once again
RMS value of the data is calculated and this RMS value is then
taken as feature vector. After getting the feature vector this led
us to the point where training of the signals initiates.
the mean of the signals. But this can further be enhanced by
finding the slope as well that is why MAVS was used instead
of MAV. To find the MAVS below mentioned formula was
used:
 (3)
Results obtained are given in the table 4.
D. Integrated-EMG
Fourth method used to obtain feature vector is
Integrated EMG. IEMG works on the area under the curve of
the rectified EMG signals. Formula for IEMG is as followed
and results of IEMG are explained in table 5.
(4)
V. CLASSFICATION AND RESULTS
We have used K nearest neighbor algorithm to classify
EEG signals. In order to classify signals the first thing KNN
need is the distance between vectors and it is calculated by
using the following formula
 (5)
This will be done 4 times as there are four different signals
present. Based upon the distance of test signal to the predefined
signals, KNN will cast one vote to the favor of the least distance
between test and one of the predefined signals.

A. Training Process :
We trained our classifier by providing training sets of all four
classes which are left smirk, right smirk, clench and normal
state. To achieve the best possible value K cross validation
method is used. Training sets present were 25 so the value of
K was set in between 0-25 with the interval of 1.
B. Testing Process:
Test samples which were 25 samples for each action per
person were tested. The results of the classification are given in
the matrix below,
Figure 6 SRMS plot
Fig. 6 shows the output of SRMS signals of three different Table 2 Training Classification Accuracy using S-RMS method
classes and two test signals. Analyzing the signals, it can clearly
Test Left Right Clench Idle
be observed that test signal 1 is of left smirk and test signal 2 is Subject Smirk Smirk
of right smirk. 01 96% 100% 88% 96%
02 100% 100% 92% 88%
03 84% 84% 80% 100%
C. Mean Avereage Value Slope 04 100% 100% 100% 96%
Third method applied to get the feature vector is 05 92% 96% 96% 100%
MAVS. which is mean absolute value slope in order to find 06 100% 100% 100% 100%
07 96% 84% 100% 100%
MAVS. First thing which we need was to find the MAV of the 08 100% 100% 100% 100%
signals and then then their slope was obtained. Formula for 09 96% 100% 100% 93%
finding MAV is as follows: 10 100% 100% 92% 96%


(2)

MAV is the absolute value of the mean of the signals which was
used to find the feature vector as it gives the absolute value of

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Table 3 TRAINING CLASSIFICATION ACCURACY USING RMS METHOD Classification accuracies of SRMS in Table 2, RMS in
Test Left Right Clench Idle Table 3, MAVS and IEMG in Table 4 and 5 respectively are
Subject Smirk Smirk
01 80% 84% 76% 80%
shown comparatively in Table 6. We have come to the point
02 76% 84% 92% 84% that without using segmented RMS best possible value is 84%
03 84% 84% 76% 68% and in worst case its value is 75%, After implementing
04 98% 68% 80% 84% Segmented RMS this algorithm can classify signals at an
05 92% 84% 76% 80% average of 96.1 % in normal conditions. In optimum conditions
06 80% 80% 80% 76% its efficiency is around 98%.
07 88% 84% 58% 80% On the other hand, in the worst case scenario when a
08 88% 84% 76% 80% person is under immense pressure and facing health issues
09 84% 88% 80% 72% accuracy is still 87% (keeping in mind test subject 3 was facing
10 100% 62% 80% 84% some dire pressure due to unemployment and he was also
having fever on the day of test). While using IEMG gives an
Table 4 TRAINING CLASSIFICATION ACCURACY USING MAVS METHOD average efficiency of 71.3%. Efficiency output of IEMG is
Test Left Right Clench Idle
ranging from 62% to 79%. On the other hand, MAVS was better
Subject Smirk Smirk
01 72% 68% 80% 76% than IEMG but certainly not as good as RMS and SRMS with
02 80% 84% 84% 80% an average efficiency of 80.4%. We should keep in mind that
03 88% 80% 84% 44% even the best result without performing segmentation is 84%
04 84% 72% 80% 80% while after performing the worst result is 87% while in
05 76% 72% 96% 80% optimum condition it is 98% while the average result is 96.1%.
06 76% 88% 88% 80%
07 80% 84% 80% 92% VI. CONCLUSION
08 84% 80% 76% 96% In this paper we have proposed a method to classify
09 68% 76% 96% 84% EEG signals using SRMS (segmented root mean square)
10 96% 100% 80% 68% method for feature extraction and then classifying with the help
of KNN algorithm. The classifier accuracy we have received is
Table 5 TRAINING CLASSIFICATION ACCURACY USING IEMG METHOD
Test Left Right Clench Idle 96.1%. To cross validate this result we have also used the
Subject Smirk Smirk classifier on simple RMS, MAV and IEMG values and used
01 56% 68% 80% 56% KNN on them. This gives us the classification accuracy of
02 72% 68% 60% 80% 80.2%, 80.4% and 71.3% respectively. The facial expressions
03 64% 52% 72% 60% are EOG and EMG signals which have significant impact on
04 60% 76% 72% 84% EEG signals. The best thing is that the signals on which this
05 76% 72% 80% 60% classifier is made up on are easy to do and are basic with almost
06 84% 80% 56% 96% every human having complete command on them.
07 60% 72% 88% 64% The data set we initially made using 5/14 channels on the
08 80% 52% 80% 96% scalp. However, after studying the effects of the signals on
09 88% 68% 56% 84%
10
different actions on different channels F7 was used for idle as
72% 84% 68% 80%
well as left and right smirk while F3 was used for clench
Table 6 COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS USING RMS, S-RMS, IEMG & MAVS
signals.
Test Accuracy Accuracy Accuracy Accuracy These results are best suited where we need results of high
Subject (RMS) (MAVS) (IEMG) (SRMS) accuracy in quick successions such as mechanical control where
01 80% 74% 65% 95% accuracy is required. Car driving, wheel chair control can be its
02 84% 82% 70% 95% future possible uses.
03 78% 74% 62% 87%
04 75% 78% 73% 99%
05 83% 78% 72% 96%
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07 78% 84% 71% 95%
08 82% 100% 76% 84%
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