QRS Complex Detection in ECG Signals Using the Synchrosqueezed Wavelet Transform

ABSTRACT

The QRS complex is the most distinctive feature in an electrocardiogram (ECG) signal. Therefore, its detection serves as the starting point for various applications, such as detection of other waves and segments, heart-rate calculation, derivation of respiration, etc. In this paper, a novel technique for QRS detection is proposed. The technique is based on the recently proposed synchrosqueezed wavelet transform (SSWT), which is obtained by application of a post-processing technique known as synchrosqueezing to the continuous wavelet transform. Following SSWT, various other processing steps are applied, including a nonlinear mapping technique, which is novel in the context of QRS detection, to finally detect the R-peaks. The proposed algorithm is evaluated on the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database and overall sensitivity, positive predictivity and error rate obtained are 99.92%, 99.93%, and 0.15%, respectively.

KEYWORDS:

• Biomedical signal processing
• ECG
• QRS
• Signal processing
• Time frequency representation
• Wavelet transform

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors would like to thank the anonymous referees whose valuable suggestions have helped in improving the quality of this paper.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tanushree Sharma

Tanushree Sharma received her BE (honors) degree in electronics and communication engineering from Rajasthan University in the year 2005. She received her MTech (honors) degree from Rajasthan Technical University in digital communication systems in the year 2011. She is currently pursuing her PhD degree in signal processing at Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur, in the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering. She has over eight years of teaching experience in the capacity of lecturer and an assistant professor. Her research interests include signal processing and machine learning.

E-mail: [email protected]

Kamalesh K. Sharma

Kamalesh Kumar Sharma received BE and ME (honors) degrees in electronics and communication engineering from Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur, India, in 1990 and 2001, respectively. He completed his PhD degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in the year 2008. Presently, he is working as a professor and Head with the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Malaviya National Institute of Technology. His research interests include sampling theory of signals, signal and image processing and fractional transforms. Mr Sharma is a life member of I.E.T.E., India.

E-mail: [email protected]