A simple method for detection and classification of ECG noises for wearable ECG monitoring devices

An assessment of electrocardiogram (ECG) signal quality has become an unavoidable first step in most holter and ambulatory ECG signal analysis applications. In this paper, we present a simple method for automatically detection and classification of ECG noises. The proposed method consists of four major steps: moving average filter, blocking, feature extraction, and multistage decision-tree algorithm. In the proposed method, the dynamic amplitude range and autocorrelation maximum peak features are extracted for each block. In the first decision stage, a amplitude-dependent decision rule is used for detecting the presence of low-frequency (LF) noise (including, baseline wander (BW) and abrupt change (ABC) artifacts) and the high-frequency (HF) noise (including, power line interference (PLI) and muscle artifacts). In the second decision stage, the proposed method further classifies the LF noise into a BW noise or a ABC noise using the local dynamic amplitude range feature. The HF noise is classified into a PLI noise or a muscle noise using the local autocorrelation maximum peak feature. The proposed detection and classification method is tested and validated using a wide variety of clean and noisy ECG signals. Results show that the method can achieve an average sensitivity (Se) of 97.88%, positive productivity (+P) of 91.18% and accuracy of 89.06%.