4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Three adaptive filters in cascade, based on LMS algorithm, were described in order to cancel common artifacts (line interference, ECG and EOG) present in EEG records.
The advantages of using a cascade of three filters instead of filtering the three signals with a single adaptive filter are among others,
a) The coefficient’s adaptation in three independent filters is simpler and faster than their adaptation in a single filter.
b) At each stage output, the error signals ei(n), EEG with one of the three attenuated artifacts are present; such separation (by artifact) may be useful in some applications where such output might be enough.
Advantages of adaptive filters over conventional ones include preservation of components intrinsic to the EEG record. Besides, they can adapt their coefficients to variations in heart frequency, abrupt changes in the line frequency (caused, say, by ignition of electric devices) or modifications due to eye movements.
A difficulty found in this work was the determination of L (filter order) and μ (convergence factor). These parameters are very important; L, because it leads to appropriate filtering, and μ, to get adequate adaptation. If μ is too big, the filter becomes unstable, and if it is too small, the adaptation may turn out too slow. Several tests were carried out to determine the optimum value for these parameters.
Results show that the proposed filter attenuates, on the average, 98.3% of the line frequency interference; 29.6% of the maximum energy component of the ECG (≅ 15 Hz), and 55.8% the EOG component of maximum energy (≅ 0.5 Hz). Apparently, the ECG and EOG components were attenuated in smaller proportion than the 50Hz, however, this probably takes place because their respective spectra overlap (reason for which adaptive filtering was used instead of a classic technique).
In some patients, the ECG attenuation was minimal (see Table I, line two, columns 5 and 6); once more the cause can be explained by spectra overlapping.
In all cases, artifacts were adequately attenuated, without removing significant useful information. We conclude that adaptive cancellation is an efficient processing technique for improving the quality of EEG signals in biomedical analysis.