Cardiac signals coding and transmission in real-time mobile telecardiology applications

Cardiac signals must be efficiently coded (in order to save channel bandwidth) and packetized using adapted application-level protocols (to guaranty monitoring quality) when transmitted in real-time operation. This paper shows an overview of different approaches for electrocardiogram (ECG) and echocardiogram (ECHO) coding and transmission over 3G networks. The described proposals permit the transmission of ECG and ECHO at rates of, respectively, 0.5 kbps per lead and 320 kbps for a medium-speed vehicle. The use of these methods enables to significantly reduce the demanded bandwidth guaranteeing signal quality in the receiver.