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Real time feature extraction of ECG signal on android platform

Conference Paper · October 2012

DOI: 10.1109/ICCICT.2012.6398230

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 Real Time Feature Extraction of ECG Signal on
Android Platform
Pankaj K. Gakare Abhilasha M. Patel Jignesh R. Vaghela R. N. Awale
Student, M. Tech Student, M. Tech Student, M. Tech Professor
(Electronics) (Electronics) (Electronics)
Dept. of Electrical Dept. of Electrical Dept. of Electrical Dept. of Electrical
Engineering Engineering Engineering Engineering
VJTI, Mumbai, Maharashtra VJTI, Mumbai, Maharashtra VJTI, Mumbai, Maharashtra VJTI, Mumbai, Maharashtra
pankajgakare@gmail.com abhilasha.patel5@gmail.com jigneshrvaghela@ymail.com rnawale@vjti.org.in

Abstract— Ambulatory cardiac monitoring has become an
important scenario nowadays as a standard preventive
cardiological procedure for detection of cardiac abnormalities. In
the proposed system it is achieved with the Android smart phone.
Heart rate variability (HRV) analysis is well known to give
information about the autonomic heart rate modulation
mechanism. In order to avoid erroneous conclusions, it is of
utmost importance that only sinus rhythms are present in the
cardiogram. Therefore, preprocessing of the RR interval time
series is necessary. This paper presents an advanced automated
algorithm to preprocess RR intervals obtained from a normal
ECG. Validation of this algorithm was performed on recorded
ECG signals by holter recorder and MIT-BIH database. The
proposed algorithm therefore restricts the manual data check to
the absolute minimum and allows a reliable HRV analysis.
Keywords-component: ECG, mHealth, eHealth, Telemedicine,
RR-interval, Android smartphone
I. INTRODUCTION
The electrocardiogram (ECG) is an important tool for
providing information about functional status of the heart.
Analysis of ECG is of great importance in the detection of
cardiac abnormalities. In a clinical setting, such as intensive
care units, it is essential for automated systems to accurately
detect and classify electrocardiography signals. The correct
performance of these systems depends on several important
factors, including the quality of the ECG signal, the applied
classification rule, the learning and testing dataset used. The
ECG is characterized by a recurrent wave sequence of P, QRS
and T- wave associated with each beat. The QRS complex is
the most striking waveform, caused by ventricular
depolarization and atrial repolarization of the human heart.
Once the positions of the QRS complexes are found, the
locations of other components of ECG like P, T waves and ST
segment etc. are found relative to the position of QRS, in order
to analyze the complete cardiac period.
During the recording process, noise heavily affects the
signal. In addition, the ECG signals collected from different
people are heterogeneous, generally reflected by the variations
in the amplitude of the beats. Hence, computationally
intensive preprocessing is required for beat detection and
feature extraction. The most important features include the
information lying in the P, Q, R, S, and T waves of the ECG
signal. ECG beats should be classified based on these features
in order to detect different types of CVD. In ambulatory ECG,
all kinds of noise may occur simultaneously and
unpredictably. Different kinds of noises interfere with ECG
signals are
Baseline wandering,
Motion artifact,
Power-line interference, and
Electrode pop or contact noise
ECG preprocessing generally takes care of de-noising the ECG
signal.
For the ambulatory cardiac monitoring and real time
processing of the recorded data, a novel concept mHealth
(Mobile Health) has been proposed as an integration of mobile
telecommunications and multimedia technologies in healthcare
delivery [1]. The concept of mHealth involves the use of
mobile devices in collecting clinical data, delivering
information to medical staff, researchers and patients,
monitoring patient’s vital signs in real time and directly
providing health care through mobile telemedicine [2].
Android smart-phone is chosen as mobile device because
of its advanced functionality and open source nature. It has
ability to run tens of thousands of application at same time [3].
Section II describes the architecture of the proposed
system. The details of filtering and QRS complex detection
algorithms are explained in section III and the summary is
concluded in section IV.
II. ARCHITECTURE
Figure 1. Architecture of Proposed System
 Figure 1 depicts the overall structure of the proposed
system and patient/doctor communication links of the ECG
system. This paper reports several components of the system,
which are currently functional and prototyped [4].
An Android smart-phone device is proposed as a Mobile
Monitoring terminal to observe and analyze ECG
(Electrocardiogram) waveforms from the wearable ECG
devices in real time under the coverage of a Bluetooth [5].
Compared with other mature wireless technology, Bluetooth
technology has many properties, such as short distance
convenience communications and devices controlling.
Bluetooth wireless communication technology is based on
portable ambulatory ECG device and smart phones. Such
systems could provide an original and flexible wireless
monitoring scheme for many phone consumers.
The ECG Analysis is done on Android platform. This
software performs analysis on the of ECG signal after filtering
in real – time. It stores the record of patient for future
reference.
The ECG signal samples are transmitted to server using
File Transfer Protocol (FTP). For this wireless transmission
excellent switching between Wi-Fi / GPRS / GSM / EDGE is
required. At server the record of all the patients will be stored
so that whenever records are required, they are reproduced.
From server it is send to intended receiver either through SMS
or MMS or Email.
III. REAL TIME QRS COMPLEX DETECTION
The most important of all the waves in the ECG waveform
is the QRS complex. The accurate detection of the R-peak of
the QRS complex is the prerequisite for the reliable function
of ECG-analyzers. The recognition of almost all ECG
parameters is based on a fixed point, identifiable at each cycle.
R-peak is suitable for use as the datum point, because it has
the largest amplitude and sharpest waveform that can be
extracted from ECG.
The time and amplitude measurements can be performed
when the apex of the R-peak is detected at each cycle.
There is a large number of recognition algorithms used in
ECG-analyzers and, in many cases, the principles of operation
vary [6]. Some are based on different types of amplitude
triggering, while others examine the signal in the frequency
domain. The adaptive properties of algorithms to the changing
signal may differ and some algorithms use statistical methods
for identification.
Compared to desktop computers, mobile phones have less
capable CPUs and lack support for complex mathematical
operations. Implementation of complex algorithms on mobile
phones is a challenging task. Also for the real time processing
and feature extraction of the ECG waveform the algorithm
should be simple and accurate [7]. A real time QRS detection
algorithm proposed by J. Pan and W.J. Tompkins is best suited
for these requirements [8].
A. Pan Tompkins Algorithm
As shown in figure 2 this algorithm uses filtering,
differentiation, signal squaring and time averaging to detect
the QRS complex [8].
Figure 2. Pan – Tompkins real time QRS detection Algorithm
Steps involved in this algorithm are
1) Filtering: It uses a bandpass filter to remove the noise
from the recorded signal. The band-pass filter is obtained by
cascading the 2nd order low-pass filter and the high-pass filter.
a) Low-pass filter: The transfer function for 2nd order low
pass filter is given by:
H (z) = (1 - z -6)2 / (1 - z-1)2
y[n] = 2 y[n-1] - y[n-2] + x[n] - 2 x[n-6] + x[n-12]
Where the cutoff frequency is about 11 Hz and the gain is 36.
b) High-pass filter: The transfer function for the high pass
filter is:
H(z) = [Y(z)/X(z)] = (1 +32 z-16 + z-32) / (1 + z-1)
The gain for this filter is 32.
2) Differentiator: After filtering, the signal is differentiated
to provide the QRS complex slope information. Using a five
point derivative with transfer function:
H(z) = 0.125 (2 + z-1 - z-3 - 2 z-4)
3) Squaring function: After differentiation, the signal is
squared point by point. The equation of this operation is
y[n] = (x[n])2
This makes all data points positive and does nonlinear
amplification of the output of the derivative emphasizing the
higher frequencies.
4) Moving-Window Integration: The purpose of moving
window integration is to obtain waveform feature information
in addition to the slope of R wave. It is calculated from:
y[n] = (x[n - (N-1)] + x[n - (N-2)] + … + x[n]) / N
Where N is the number of samples in the width of the
integration window, here N = 30.
5) Threshold adjustment and Decision making: After
moving window integration proper thresholds are adjusted to
detect the R-peaks [8]. In order to detect R-peaks correctly i.e.
no R peaks are missed out and no false peak is detected, a
decision making block is implemented which will decide that
the detected peak is valid QRS complex or not.
6) Results:
Figure 3. Original ECG signal
Figure 4. QRS complex detected using Pan-Tompkins algorithm
Figure 3 shows raw ECG signal of patient with ID number
104 from MITDB database of 10 seconds. This raw ECG
signal is processed using Pan – Tompkins algorithm and QRS
complex & R peaks are detected as shown in figure 4.
B. Discussion
From the results obtained from Pan-Tompkins algorithm it
can be clearly observed that the waveform feature of an ECG
signal is lost and only the QRS complexes and R-peaks are
extracted.
Although the algorithm provides simple steps for obtaining
the QRS complexes and provides accurate results up to 99.3%
[8]. It cannot be used for the proposed system, where the main
objective is to develop an efficient algorithm able to run in
near real-time within a mobile phone that can provide a
diagnostically useful ECG recording. That can be analyzed
and if necessary it may be sent to the physician for the
analysis. For this purpose we need to extract the exact
waveform feature from the captured signal. As this system is
designed for the ambulatory patient monitoring, many
interferences like Baseline wandering, Motion artifact, Power-
line interference, and Electrode pop or contact noise may
occur as discussed previously.
So we have modified this algorithm proposed by J. Pan and
W.J. Tompkins to extract the waveform feature from the
captured ECG signal.
C. Modified (Proposed) algorithm
The proposed algorithm is a modified version of Pan-
Tompkins algorithm. The steps involved in this algorithm are
signal filtering using low-pass, high-pass, and comb filter,
differentiation, squaring function and moving window
integration.
Figure 5. Block Diagram of Modified Pan Tompkins Algorithm
Block diagram of both algorithms is same but filtering
algorithm is different for both and output after decision block
is different. At the end QRS complex along with R peaks is
detected without waveform feature in Pan – Tompkins and R
peaks are detected along with waveform feature in modified
Pan – Tompkins algorithm.
1) Filtering: ECG signals from the electrodes are corrupted by
various sources, such as the 60 Hz power line noise, potentials
from muscular activity, and interferences from other nearby
electronic devices. Hence, the signals must undergo pre-
processing like filtering to remove unwanted data from being
processed and misinterpreted.
a) Moving Average (Low-pass) filter: The transfer
function of the low pass filter is given by:
H(z) = (1/10) [1 + z-1 + z-2 + . . . . . . . + z-9]
y(nT) = [x(nT - (NT-T)) + x(nT – (NT-2T))
+..............+ x(nT) ] / N
Where N = 10.
b) Derivative based (High-pass) filter: This filter removes
the baseline wander in the signal.
The transfer function is:
H(z) = [ 0.9975(1 - z-1) / (1 – 0.995 z-1) ]
y(nT) = 0.995y(nT - T)+0.9975[x(nT)–x(nT-T)]
c) Comb filter: Transfer function of the comb filter is
given as follows:
H(z)=0.6310[1+z-9]+ 0.4161[z-1+z-8] – 0.0637[z-2 +z-7]
+0.0224 [z-3 + z-6]– 0.061[z-4 + z-5]
y(nT) = 0.6310[x(nT – 9T)]+0.4161[x(nT- T) + x(nT – 8T)]
- 0.0637 [x(nT – 2T) + x(nT – 7T)] + 0.0224 [x(nT – 3T)
+ x(nT – 6T)] - 0.061 0 [x(nT – 4T) + x(nT – 5T)]]
The comb filter removes the 60 Hz power line
interference and harmonic noise is also suppressed.
2) Differentiation: After filtering the signal is differentiated
using the transfer function
Y(z) = [(1 - z-1)/ z-1 ] X(z)
y(nT) = x(nT+T) - x(nT)
3) Squaring: After differentiation the resulted signal is
squared point by point using the equation
y(nT) = [x(nT)] 2
4) Moving window integration: After squaring the signal it is
applied to the moving window integrator. The equation used
for this purpose is
y(nT) = [ x(nT - (NT-T)) + x(nT - (NT-2T))+ …. + x(nT) ] / N
Where N = 30.
N is number of samples in integration window. If the
window is too wide it will merge the QRS and T wave. If it is
too small some complexes will produce several peaks in the
waveform. The width of the window is determined
empirically. Here it is 30 samples wide. i.e. N = 30
5) Results:
Figure 6. Raw (collected) ECG signal
Figure 7 Moving average (Low-pass) Filtered signal
Figure 8. Derivative based (High pass) filtered signal
Figure 9. Comb filtered signal
Figure 10. Filtered signal and R-peaks
Figure 6 is raw ECG signal of patient from live ECG
application. This signal when passed through Low Pass Filter
which is nothing but moving average filter with window size
of 10samples (i.e. for 500 Hz sampling frequency, window
size is 20msec) resulted output is as shown in figure
7. Mathematically, a moving average is a type
of convolution and so it can be viewed as low-pass
filter. They smooth the curve and they cut the highest
frequencies.
Figure 8 shows output of Derivative based High-pass
filter. It does not introduce delay in samples and preserves
most of the energy at the high frequencies corresponding to
the QRS complex.
Figure 9 shows output of Comb filter. A comb filter adds
a delayed version of a signal to itself, causing constructive and
destructive interference. It improves quality of signal. The
implementation here is feedforward i.e. an FIR filter.
After filtering the raw ECG signal, it is applied to
Differentiator, Squarer and Integrator for QRS complex
detection. The steps and importance of each step is same as
algorithm proposed by Pan- Tompkins [8]. Figure 10 shows R
peak location within each QRS complex.
IV. CONCLUSION
Pan Tompkins Algorithm and Modified (Proposed)
Algorithm are tested using MIT-BIH Database i.e. using
MITDB which is available on Physionet website. Table I
summarizes the comparison of two algorithms based on R
Peak Detection.
The database contains record of 48 patients. Total number
of R Peaks in database is 3681. Out of these false or failed
peaks detected using Pan Tompkins Algorithm is 92 (2.499%)
and by using Modified Algorithm are 413 (11.219%). This
suggests efficiency of 97.501% of Pan Tompkins Algorithm
and 88.781% efficiency of Modified (Proposed) Pan
Tompkins Algorithm for 30,000 samples i.e. for record or
60mins.
Pan Tompkins Algorithm is found to be more efficient
than Modified or Proposed Algorithm for MITDB. But
Proposed Algorithm is found to be very effective when
acquired ECG signal is noisy. Modified (Proposed) Pan
Tompkins Algorithm filters the signal very efficiently [Figure
6 and 7] and produces actual waveform features.
 REFERENCES
[1] Alma Secerbegovic, Aljo Mujcic, Nermin Suljanovic, Midhat Nurkic,
Jurij Tasic, ― The research mHealth platform for ECG monitoring ‖, 11th
International Conference on Telecommunications - ConTEL 2011, pp.
103 – 108.
[2] Rune Fensli, Einar Gunnarson, Torstein Gundersen, ― A Wearable ECG-
recording System for Continuous Arrhythmia Monitoring in a Wireless
Tele-Home-Care Situation ‖, 18th IEEE International Symposium on
Computer based Medical systems, Dublin, June 2005.
[3] Website - http://developer.android.com
[4] Pei-Cheng Hii and Wan-Young Chung, ―A Comprehensive Ubiquitous
Healthcare Solution on an Android™ Mobile Device‖, Sensors 2011,pp
no.6799 – 6815.
[5] Valerie GAY, Peter LEIJDEKKERS, ―A Health Monitoring System
Using Smart Phones and Wearable Sensors‖, International Journal of
ARM, VOL. 8, NO. 2, June 2007, pp no.29-36.
[6] Patrick S. Hamilton, Willis J. Tompkins, ―Quantitative Investigation of
QRS Detection rules using the MIT/BIH Arrhythmia Database‖, IEEE
Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Vol. BME-33, N0.12,
December 1986, PP No. 1157-1165.
[7] Thomas Ho Chee Tat, Chen Xiang, Lim Eng Thiam, ―Physionet
Challenge 2011: Improving the Quality of Electrocardiography Data
Collected Using Real Time QRS-Complex and T-Wave Detection‖,
Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore, Singapore.
[8] J. Pan and W.J. Tompkins, ―A real-time QRS detection algorithm,‖
IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng., vol. BME-32, pp. 230-236, 1985.

Patient ID No. of R Peaks Detected No. of R Peaks Actual False or Failed False or Failed
using PAN Tompkins Detected using Number of Detection in PAN Detection in Modified
Algorithm Proposed Algorithm R Peaks TOMPKINS Algorithm
100 74 74 74 0 0
101 71 71 71 0 0
102 73 73 73 0 0
103 70 70 70 0 0
104 76 27 76 0 49
105 83 83 83 0 0
106 67 55 67 0 12
107 73 76 71 2 5
108 111 12 59 52 47
109 91 91 91 0 0
111 69 68 69 0 1
112 86 85 85 1 0
113 58 77 58 0 19
114 54 98 54 0 44
115 63 63 63 0 0
116 79 79 78 1 1
117 51 95 50 1 45
118 73 73 73 0 0
119 65 65 65 0 0
121 61 60 60 1 0
122 87 87 87 0 0
123 49 49 49 0 0
124 50 49 49 1 0
200 87 83 87 0 4
201 89 90 90 1 0
202 53 52 53 0 1
203 102 98 102 0 4
205 89 89 89 0 0
207 79 92 88 9 4
208 95 107 106 11 1
209 93 93 93 0 0
210 88 89 92 4 3
212 90 90 90 0 0
213 110 111 111 1 0
214 76 76 76 0 0
215 113 8 113 0 105
217 72 72 71 1 1
219 73 73 74 1 1
220 72 72 72 0 0
221 78 78 78 0 0
222 75 69 75 0 6
223 80 80 80 0 0
228 74 12 71 3 59
230 79 78 79 0 1
231 63 63 63 0 0
232 58 57 57 1 0
234 103 104 104 1 0
234 92 92 92 0 0

Total – 48
Patient 3717 3508 3681 92 413
(2.499%) (11.219%)

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