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Efficient algorithm for baseline wander and powerline noise removal from ECG signals based on discrete Fourier series

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Abstract

Electrocardiogram (ECG) signals are often contaminated with artefacts and noises which can lead to incorrect diagnosis when they are visually inspected by cardiologists. In this paper, the well-known discrete Fourier series (DFS) is re-explored and an efficient DFS-based method is proposed to reduce contribution of both baseline wander (BW) and powerline interference (PLI) noises in ECG records. In the first step, the determination of the exact number of low frequency harmonics contributing in BW is achieved. Next, the baseline drift is estimated by the sum of all associated Fourier sinusoids components. Then, the baseline shift is discarded efficiently by a subtraction of its approximated version from the original biased ECG signal. Concerning the PLI, the subtraction of the contributing harmonics calculated in the same manner reduces efficiently such type of noise. In addition of visual quality results, the proposed algorithm shows superior performance in terms of higher signal-to-noise ratio and smaller mean square error when faced to the DCT-based algorithm.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire d’Automatique Avancée et d’Analyse des Systèmes (LAAAS), Electronics Department, University of Batna 2, Batna, Algeria

    Mohamed Bahaz & Redha Benzid

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  1. Mohamed Bahaz
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  2. Redha Benzid
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Correspondence to Mohamed Bahaz.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Bahaz, M., Benzid, R. Efficient algorithm for baseline wander and powerline noise removal from ECG signals based on discrete Fourier series. Australas Phys Eng Sci Med 41, 143–160 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13246-018-0623-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13246-018-0623-1

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