Combination of multiple detectors for EEG based biometric identification/authentication

The different structures of the brain of human beings produce spontaneous electroencephalographic (EEG) records that can be used to identify subjects. This paper presents a method for biometric authorization and identification based on EEG signals. The hardware uses a simple 2-signal electrode and a reference electrode configuration. The electrodes are positioned in such a way to be as unobtrusive as possible for the tested subject. Multiple features are extracted from the EEG signals that are processed by different classifiers. The system uses all the possible combinations between classifiers and features, fusing the best results. The fused decision improves the classification performance for even a small number of observation vectors. Results were obtained from a population of 50 subjects and 20 intruders, both in authentication and identification tasks. The system obtains an Equal Error Rate (EER) of 2.4% with only a few seconds for testing. The obtained performance measures are an improvement over the results of current EEG-based systems.