An investigation on the utility of unique brain characteristics for personal identification using EEG data

Abstract

This thesis presents an investigation on unique brain features acquired by the utility of EEG systems data and the processing steps required to accomplish it. The purpose of this thesis is to examine unique brain features that could potentially identify individual subjects. The initial approach for such task was to investigate the utility of the P300 wave potential for personal identification. The data utilized in this experiment was retrieved from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) that specializes in research and teaching on Multimedia Signal Processing. The EEG datasets that included the raw ERP signal of the P300 brain wave potential from anonymous subjects were used for this experiment. Throughout the development stages new potential patterns for personal identification were discovered based on the target to target intervals and hits on target of each subject. Such patterns have proved to be unique for each individual subject and thus were utilized as an aid to the investigation for the identification of subjects in this experiment.