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.