Improved filter bank common spatial pattern algorithm based on the sparrow search algorithm

The application of motor imagery in human-computer interaction and rehabilitative medicine has attracted growing attention due to recent advances in brain-computer interface technologies. However, traditional EEG decoding paradigms based on fixed frequency-band segmentation often exhibit limited performance because they fail to capture individual variability in brain rhythms.

This work proposes an adaptive method that integrates the sparrow search algorithm (SSA) with Filter Bank Common Spatial Pattern (FBCSP) to optimize sub-band segmentation for motor imagery EEG decoding. SSA adaptively searches for optimal sub-band boundaries, enabling individualized frequency-band selection.

Experiments on the BCI Competition IV 2a dataset under a cross-session evaluation protocol (training on session T, testing on session E) demonstrated that SSA-FBCSP effectively improves frequency-band adaptability. The SSA-FBCSP approach was further combined with Support Vector Machine (SVM), Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), and k-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) classifiers to evaluate the influence of different downstream classifiers.

Among them, SSA-FBCSP-LDA achieved the best performance, outperforming the conventional uniform sub-band approach by 21.76% and reaching an average accuracy of 89.92%. The adaptively selected sub-bands closely matched the ERD/ERS distribution, confirming the method's effectiveness in frequency-band optimization. Compared with recent deep-learning-based MI-EEG models, the proposed technique offers a balance of accuracy, interpretability, and computational efficiency, providing a promising direction for personalized brain-computer interface systems.