Wavelet Design for Automatic Real-Time Eye Blink Detection and Recognition in EEG Signals

The blinking of an eye can be detected in electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings and can be understood as a useful control signal in some information processing tasks. The detection of a specific pattern associated with the blinking of an eye in real time using EEG signals of a single channel has been analyzed. This study considers both theoretical and practical principles enabling the design and implementation of a system capable of precise real-time detection of eye blinks within the EEG signal. This signal or pattern is subject to considerable scale changes and multiple incidences. In our proposed approach, a new wavelet was designed to improve the detection and localization of the eye blinking signal. The detection of multiple occurrences of the blinking perturbation in the recordings performed in real-time operation is achieved with a window giving a time-limited projection of an ongoing analysis of the sampled EEG signal.