A Novel P300 Classification Algorithm Based on a Principal Component Analysis-Convolutional Neural Network

Aiming at enhancing the classification accuracy of P300 Electroencephalogram signals in a non-invasive brain–computer interface system, a novel P300 electroencephalogram signals classification algorithm is proposed which is based on improved convolutional neural network. In the data preprocessing part, the proposed P300 classification algorithm used the Principal Component Analysis algorithm to not only remove the noise and artifacts in the data, but also increase the data processing speed. Furthermore, the proposed P300 classification algorithm employed the parallel convolution method to improve the traditional convolutional neural network framework, which can increase the network depth and improve the network’s ability to classify P300 electroencephalogram signals. The proposed algorithm was evaluated by two datasets (the dataset from the competition and the dataset from the laboratory). The results show that, in the dataset I, the proposed P300 classification algorithm could obtain accuracy rates higher than 95%, and achieve one of the best performances in four classification algorithms, while, in the dataset II, the proposed P300 classification algorithm can get accuracy rates higher than 90%, and is superior to the other three algorithms in all ten subjects. These demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. The proposed classification algorithm can be applied in the actual brain–computer interface systems to help people with disability in the daily lives.