Reconstruction of underlying heart rate from integrated pulse frequency modulated heart pulses with 1/f fluctuations

This paper compares the performance of three methods to reconstruct underlying heart rate from observed ECG pulse trains. Artificial integrated pulse frequency modulated pulse trains with 1/f fluctuations, which simulate ECG pulse trains, were generated and used for the evaluation of reconstruction methods. Instantaneous heart rate, the heart rate reconstructed by the Berger´s method and the derivative of cubic spline interpolation (DCSI) method were compared. The performances of those methods were examined by comparing the spectral pattern of reconstructed heart rate signals. The DCSI method was shown to give the best performance preserving 1/f spectral characteristics over the wide frequency range.