Detection of Motion Artifacts in Photoplethysmographic Signals: Algorithms Comparison

Abstract

The presence of motion artifacts in the photoplethysmographic (PPG) signals is one of the major obstacles in the extraction of reliable cardiovascular parameters in real time and continuous monitoring applications. In the current paper we present a comparison between two motion artifacts detection methodologies proposed by Couceiro et al. [1] and Correia T. [2]. The first method is based on the analysis of the variations in the time and period domain characteristics of the PPG signal. The second method analysis the differences between the changes in the Heart Rate measured from the PPG and the ECG signals. Both methodologies are validated in healthy and cardiovascular diseased volunteers, for 11 different motion artifact patterns. The results achieved by the presented methodologies show a better performance of the first algorithm (SE: 83% and SP: 87%) and the great importance of both time and period domain features in the discrimination of motion artifacts from clean PPG pulses.