Brain Waves and Evoked Potentials as Biometric User Identification Strategy: an Affordable Low-Cost Approach

Abstract

The relatively recent introduction on the market of low-cost devices able to perform an Electroencephalography (EEG) has opened a stimulating research scenario that involves a large number of researchers previously excluded due to the high costs of such hardware. In this regard, one of the most stimulating research fields is focused on the use of such devices in the context of biometric systems, where the EEG data are exploited for user identification purposes. Based on the current literature, which reports that many of these systems are designed by combining the EEG data with a series of external stimuli (Evoked Potentials) to improve the reliability and stability over time of the EEG patterns, this work is aimed to formalize a biometric identification system based on low-cost EEG devices and simple stimulation instruments, such as images and sounds generated by a computer. In other words, our objective is to design a low-cost EEG-based biometric approach exploitable on a large number of real-world scenarios.