9th International Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering 353

20-22 December, 2016, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Analysis of ECG Signal and Classification of Heart

Abnormalities Using Artificial Neural Network
Tanoy Debnath, Md. Mehedi Hasan, Tanwi Biswas
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Khulna University of Engineering & Technology
Khulna 9203, Bangladesh
kuettanoydebnath@yahoo.com, mehedi_ece@yahoo.com, tanwibiswas.tb@gmail.com

Abstract—Cardiac arrhythmia indicates abnormal electrical R intervals, Heart rate and Heart condition. The purpose of
activity of heart that can be a great threat to human. So it needs classification is to identify various heart conditions with
to be identified for clinical diagnosis and treatment. Analysis of patients age/gender, R-R intervals and Heart Rate which helps
ECG signal plays an important role in diagnosing cardiac diseases. clinical cardiac diagnostic system. For this reason, artificial
An efficient method of analysing ECG signal and predicting heart neural network has chosen for classification because of its vast
abnormalities have been proposed in this paper. In the proposed use in machine learning areas and biomedical fields. For the
scheme, at first the QRS components have been extracted from the classification purposes Back propagation has chosen which is
noisy ECG signal by rejecting the background noise. This is done easy to utilize for proper classification. It is a feed forward
by using the Pan Tompkins algorithm. The second task involves
neural network which is used by training and testing data. Back
calculation of heart rate and detection of tachycardia,
bradycardia, asystole and second degree AV block from detected
propagation refers to backward propagation of errors so that
QRS peaks using MATLAB. The results show that from detected there is a minimum difference between estimated data and
QRS peaks, arrhythmias which are based on increase or decrease output data. In back propagation, an iterative way is used
in the number of QRS peak, absence of QRS peak can be mainly for this purpose so that all the weight can be updated to
diagnosed. The final task is to classify the heart abnormalities a new value after each iteration and a feed forward network is
according to previous extracted features. The back propagation chosen because here all the input, weight and hidden neuron are
(BP) trained feed-forward neural network has been selected for interconnected to each other.
this research. Here, data used for the analysis of ECG signal are
from MIT database II. PROPOSED METHODOLOGY
The Methodology of this proposed work can be predicted from
Index Terms— ECG; Tachycardia; Bradycardia; Asystole; figure (1) in Block Diagram.
Second degree AV block; Backpropagation.
ECG signal from
I. INTRODUCTION MIT – BIH database
Electrocardiogram (ECG) is the graph of voltage versus
time which is produced due to electrical activities of human
heart. An ECG signal consists of various parts such as P wave, Preprocessing and
QRS complex and T wave which are the waveform of removing Artifacts
corresponding electrical activities of various parts of the human
heart. During the analysis of ECG signal, data including the
positions or magnitudes of the QRS, PR, QT and ST intervals, QRS Detection by Pan
the PR and ST segments etc. are considered for accurately –Tompkins algorithm
diagnosing the heart diseases [1]. With the features present in
the ECG signal, it is possible to predict various cardiac
arrhythmias. There are many established algorithms for
Feature Extraction
extracting features from ECG signal to predict heart
abnormalities, for example, algorithms from the field of
artificial neural network [2], genetic algorithm [3], Wavelet
Transform [4] etc. Training
Sample
For analyzing the ECG signal and before the steps of feature Training Data tested Data
extraction, preprocessing of ECG signal is necessary because
signal is noisy and so many artifacts. For the analysis of ECG
signal MIT-BIH Arrhythmia Database [5] with patients
Information has been used. This database is a large collection Classification
of recorded physiologic signals and it has free web access for
researchers for their experimental purpose. For the
preprocessing purpose a widely popular technique called Pan-
Tompkins Algorithm has been adapted. This is for QRS
complex detection for the measurement of Heart beat (BPM) Normal Tachycardia Bradycardia Block
[6]. The proposed algorithm automatically calculate heart rate
and finds the Heart condition according to the measured Heart Figure 1. Block Diagram of Proposed Methodology
Beat (BPM). Extracted features are based on patient’s age, R-

978-1-5090-2963-1/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE


Firstly ECG signals are collected from database and
preprocessed for removing artifacts and using Pan – Tompkins
algorithm Q,R,S are identified for the heart rate calculation.
This deflection of ECG signal is very important features for
identify various hearts conditions. A neural network is trained
with 26 datasets containing features of QRS complex with
patients age/gender, R-R intervals and Heart Rate with
condition of hearts. After the training, the network is tested with
12 more datasets. Tested results have gone through the same as
by training datasets.
III. METHODOLOGY WORK
A. Preprocessing of ECG signal
ECG signal collected from database is recorded signal that is
often contaminated with electrical interference or noise that is
recorded from sources other than the electronic signals of the
heart. In order to eradicate noisy ECG signal we have to
preprocess the basic ECG signal. This preprocessing can be
done by two ways.
1) Preprocessing and
2) Feature Extraction.
Preprocessing step eliminates electrical interference of ECG
signal like power line artifacts, Electromyographic (EMG)
noise, baseline wandering which are more significant among
artifacts and they can impact on ECG signal analysis. Feature
extraction step refers to obtain the most relevant information
from the original ECG signal. For this preprocessing and
feature extraction stage Pan – Tompkins algorithm has been
applied.
B. Pan-Tompkins Algorithm
Compared to other QRS detection technique the utilization of
Pan-Tompkins algorithm is more vulnerable. The literature
survey of this approach makes it as one of the most important
algorithm in detection QRS peak [7]. For better diagnosing the
heart abnormalities the accuracy of any ECG waveform
extraction plays a vital role.
Signal Band pass Filter
Derivation
Squaring
Average and
Threshold
Peak
Detection
QRS Detection
Fig 2. Pan-Tompkins Structure
Fig 2. Shows the graphical representation of the Pan-Tompkins
algorithm. This algorithm is one of the most popular QRS
detection process in biomedical signal processing textbooks
354
[8]. Initially the contaminated signal is processed by filtering,
derivation, squaring, thresholds detecting and finally detecting
the QRS complex [9].
1) Band Pass Flitering
Signal passes through a band pass filter which is a cascaded low
pass filter and high pass filter. This filtering process reduces
noise in the ECG signal and an average QRS complex is found
by matching the spectrum of the signal. Noises like Muscle
noise, power line interference, baseline wander, T wave
interference are attenuated by band pass filtering. Pass band
maximizes the energy of QRS complex in the range of 5 Hz- 15
Hz. The cascaded low pass filter and high pass filter are
described by the formula. For low-pass filter,
y(n)= 2y(n-1)-y(n-2)-x(n)-2x(n-6)-x(n-12)………………(1)
For High –pass filter,
y(n)= y(n-1)- 1/32x(n)-x(n-16)-x(n-17)+1/32x(n-32)……(2)
2) Derivation
Signal then processed with derivative operator which is a
standard technique to identify a peak in the signal. Derivative
filter finds out the high slopes. It identifies the direction in the
slope of the signal and distinguishes the QRS complexes from
other ECG waves. It suppresses the low frequency components
and a large gain to the high frequency components arises. The
signal is differentiated to find out QRS slope using the
following formula:
y(n)= 1/8[2x(n)+ x(n-1)-x(n-3)-2x(n-4)]…………………..(3)
3) Squaring
The squaring function is a nonlinear transformation that
squaring the signal samples point by point. It makes the all
signal values positive and amplifies the output of the previous
stage. It suppresses the P and T wave and high frequency
components of the QRS complex are increased. Thus
emphasizing the R peaks in the signal. After differentiating the
signal is then squared making all the values positive and give
importance to the higher frequencies.
y(n)=x2 (n)………………………………………………..(4)
4) Averaging and Threshold Process
For visual purposes and better identification of R peaks,
averaging is utilized that maximizes the signal compared with
squaring output. After the averaging process the threshold of
the obtained signal is done that detects peaks in the ECG signal
and identifies a threshold value. Then it is classified as QRS
peak if peak crosses threshold. The signal now passes through
a moving window integrator that performs as suitable interval
under the squared waveform, sums the area and advances the
new window. It performs as a smoothing of output of the
previous operations. N= 40 was found as a suitable window
width for frequency, fS=360 Hz.
5) QRS peak detection
For measuring Heart Beat in BPM detection of QRS complex
is necessary. By calculating the time period of the R-R interval
it can be measured. Different heart condition called arrhythmia

maximum and minimum amplitude is also found by analyzing
the ECG signal. Below are several steps for real time ECG
signal processing and QRS detection.
• Data Acquisition from MIT-BIH database.
• Filtering the signal by using low pass filter and high
pass filter.
• Differentiation of the signal that’s passes through
band pass filter.
• Squaring the differentiated signal for getting all
positive value.
• Averaging, Threshold and integrating the squared
signal and clear R peak detection.
• Determination of R-R interval.
• Calculation of heart rate by R-R interval.
For Heart Rate calculation,
Heart Rate = 60/ R-R interval (m sec).
C. Feature Extraction
By using the Pan–Tompkins algorithm, ECG signal is
preprocessed and we obtained peak values. Now for the
classification purposes, features are selected by four ways.
Age/gender (from MIT database), R-R intervals, Heart Rate are
chosen for the features for classification for different heart
conditions. Firstly age is considered as 95 is the highest age,
secondly gender is chosen as male= 1; Female= 0; other= 0.5,
thirdly R-R interval/max. of R-R inerval value is chosen and
finally heart rate is guessed (160 is the maximum value).
D. Classification
In biomedical engineering and machine learning, Artificial
Neural Network (ANNs) are a family of statistical learning
algorithm inspired by biological neural network ( the central
system of animals) that are utilized to estimate or approximate
functions that depend on a large number of inputs that are
usually unknown [10]. For classification for different heart
conditions the ANN used in this work is based on back
propagation (BP).
Fig. 3: Three layer feed forward network
Back propagation refers to backward propagation of errors. It
is a three layer feed forward network and a common method of
training artificial neural network that is efficient. For obtaining
desired classification performance, the selection of hidden
nodes is very important. Number of hidden nodes is
commensurate to the complexity and memory requirement. The
network cannot adjust the weight efficiently when the number
of hidden nodes decrease. Sometimes an overfitting can be
occurred. That’s why, the network is generalized to nullify
355
overfitting [11]. The back propagation algorithm can be divided
into two phases:1) Propagation of errors and 2) Weight update.
When the errors propagate in the backward direction, the
weight in the layers will change. It is an iterative algorithm to
minimize the mean square error between the desired output and
the actual network output. This algorithm has limitation like it
always changes weights in such a way to cause the error to fall.
TABLE I. CONDITIONS FOR HEART ABNORMALITIES
Serial Heart Abnormalities Conditions
No
1 Tachycardia Heart
Rate>100BPM
2 Bradycardia Heart
Rate<60BPM
3 Second Degree AV Block QRS dropped
4 First Degree AV Block Long PR
interval
Complete Heart Complete drop
5 Block(Asystole) out of cardiac
cycle
Table 1 shows the conditions for the different heart conditions.
For the classification purposes second degree heart block, first
degree heart block and complete heart block are considered as
block condition. For scarcity of above mentioned conditions
data we considered these for block.
IV. RESULT ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
Table 2 shows the extracted features for the sample signals
for different heart conditions and features are divided by four
ways. Table 3 shows the confusion matrix for heart
abnormalities classification performance that shows the correct
and incorrect predictions made by BPNN. Firstly 26 datasets
are trained and tested with 12 data. Three conditions for heart
such as normal, bradycardia, tachycardia are classified
perfectly but block condition is not correctly identified. Fig. 5
shows the iteration number to train error graph for training the
data set where mean square error decreases in the increasing of
iteration. It will be tends to zero of the higher value of iteration
number. The mean square error will not decrease sharply for a
value of iteration number. An approximate value of 0.056 after
which the value of mean square have not decreased sharply.
Fig. 5: Training error vs. number of iteration curve for training data set.
 356

TABLE II. EXTRACTED FEATURES FOR SAMPLE SIGNALS Chf15 53/M 1.2 48.2 HEART BLOCK

Test Age/Gender R-R Heart Identification

interval rate 228 80/F 0.83 72 FIRST DEGREE
HEART BLOCK
103 84/F 0.83 72 NORMAL
104 66/F 0.772 77.2 NORMAL 37 1.9 31.5 COMPLETE
106 24/F 0.90 66 NORMAL HEART BLOCK
16272 20/F 1 60 NORMAL
16273 28/F 0.714 84 NORMAL
16795 20/F 0.711 84.375 NORMAL
16786 32/F 0.833 72 NORMAL Table 3. Confusion matrix for heart abnormalities classification by
BPNN
16773 26/M 0.833 72 NORMAL
Classes Normal Bradycardia Tachycardia Block
16439 35/F 0.90 66 NORMAL Normal 0.981165 0.063549 0.002401 0.011074
101 75/F 1.2 49 BRADYCARDIA
Normal 0.974685 0.276393 0.000745 0.003432
232 76/F 1.25 1.25 BRADYCARDIA Bradycardia 0.061554 0.813611 0.000231 0.209684
800 - 1.25 48 BRADYCARDIA Bradycardia 0.542276 0.872049 0.000107 0.004602
801 - 1.66 36 BRADYCARDIA Tachycardia 0.008373 2.95E-05 0.994776 0.000108
Tachycardia 0.000288 1.64E-07 0.999789 0.08414
802 - 1.42 42 BRADYCARDIA
Block 0.280936 0.006238 0.048266 0.465988
16483 42/M 1.66 36 BRADYCARDIA
Block 0.359838 0.014197 0.024578 0.66721
16420 38/F 1.5 40 BRADYCARDIA
V. CONCLUSION
18177 26/F 2.5 24 BRADYCARDIA In this paper we established a network to classify different heart
abnormalities e.g. normal, bradycardia, tachycardia and block
PERSON30 1.11 54.05 BRADYCARDIA as discussed earlier. A back propagation algorithm with feed
PERSON40 56.4 BRADYCARDIA forward neural network is used for classification purpose that
1.06 is efficient. Though in our proposed work block condition is not
212 32/F 0.659 91 TACHYCARDIA
classified due to some unintentional errors but the overall
performance is excellent. The correct and incorrect relationship
215 81/M 0.56 106.3 TACHYCARDIA has shown in confusion matrix that is satisfactory. For future
16265 - 0.51 118.25 TACHYCARDIA work, we will try to find out more features and utilize other
classifier like SVM, kNN classifier and will make comparison
with ANN based on their classification performance.
Chf01 71/M 0.430 139.3 TACHYCARDIA
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