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Recently, steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) has become one of the most popular electroencephalography paradigms due to its high information transfer rate. Several approaches have been proposed to improve the performance of SSVEP. The calibration- free scenario is significant in SSVEP-based brain-computer interface systems, where the subject is the first time to use the system. The participating teams proposed several effective calibration-free algorithm frameworks in the SSVEP competition (calibration-free) of the BCI Controlled Robot Contest in World Robot Contest 2021. This paper introduces the approaches used in the algorithms of the top five teams in the final. The results of the five subjects in the final proved the effectiveness of the approaches. This paper discusses the effectiveness of each approach in improving the system performance in the calibration-free scenario and gives suggestions on how to use these approaches in a real-world system.


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Overview of the winning approaches in BCI Controlled Robot Contest in World Robot Contest 2021: Calibration-free SSVEP

Show Author's information Rui BianDongrui Wu( )
School of Artificial Intelligence and Automation, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China

Abstract

Recently, steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) has become one of the most popular electroencephalography paradigms due to its high information transfer rate. Several approaches have been proposed to improve the performance of SSVEP. The calibration- free scenario is significant in SSVEP-based brain-computer interface systems, where the subject is the first time to use the system. The participating teams proposed several effective calibration-free algorithm frameworks in the SSVEP competition (calibration-free) of the BCI Controlled Robot Contest in World Robot Contest 2021. This paper introduces the approaches used in the algorithms of the top five teams in the final. The results of the five subjects in the final proved the effectiveness of the approaches. This paper discusses the effectiveness of each approach in improving the system performance in the calibration-free scenario and gives suggestions on how to use these approaches in a real-world system.

Keywords: steady-state visual evoked potential, brain-computer interfaces, electroencephalogram, SSVEP spellers, calibration-free

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Publication history

Received: 03 January 2022
Revised: 20 February 2022
Accepted: 04 March 2022
Published: 29 June 2022
Issue date: June 2022

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© The authors 2022.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2021ZD0201303), the Technology Innovation Project of Hubei Province of China (Grant No. 2019AEA171), and the Hubei Province Funds for Distinguished Young Scholars (Grant No. 2020CFA050).

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