A NEW LOW-COMPLEXITY ALGORITHM FOR THE PULSE TRANSIT TIME EVALUATION

Abstract

The pulse transit time (PTT) is a physiological parameter commonly derived from Electrocardiogram (ECG) and Photoplethysmogram (PPG) signal. It is defined as the time taken for the arterial pulse to travel from the heart to a peripheral site, and can be used as a direct indicator of Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD). In this study, we propose a new low-complexity algorithm for the (PTT) estimation. The (PTT) is calculated as the interval between the peak of the ECG R-wave and a time point on the PPG. We considered a dataset of 37 subjects containing a simultaneous recording of the (ECG) and the (PPG). The computation of the (PTT) consists of detecting the peak and foot points of a (PPG) and the R peak of the (ECG) signal. Our algorithm is improved by a temporal analysis by windowing. The results obtained are promising. The average sensitivity (SEN) and accuracy (ACC) obtained are respectively (97.5%, and 96.82%) for the detection of R peaks and (97.77%, and 97.64%) for the detection of PPG peaks. The sensitivity (SEN) and accuracy (ACC) of the foot (PPG) detection were 98.33% and 94.14%.