Subtraction procedure for powerline interference removing from ECG: improvement for non-multiple sampling

Abstract

This paper presents an improvement of the subtraction procedure for interference cancellation in ECG. In contrast to the well-known hardware and software filters, the procedure does not affect the signal frequency components around the rated powerline frequency. Originally, the procedure was developed for multiplicity between the sampling rate and the interference frequency. We analysed and improved the procedure structure in cases of non-multiple sampling, introducing a set of specially designed filters. Thus the implementation of the subtraction procedure is extended to almost all possible cases of sampling rate and interference frequency variation. The procedure has been adapted for online implementation. The research was initially carried out in a MATLAB environment. Further, programmes have been written in C^+ + language for digital signal processors and personal computers. The results obtained with real ECG signals show high efficiency of the interference cancellation.

• ECG signals
• Powerline interference
• Subtraction procedure
• Rejection filter