An Efficient R-Peak Detection Using Riesz Fractional-Order Digital Differentiator

Abstract

Clinically, electrocardiogram (ECG) is a powerful tool for determining the health and functioning of the human heart. Faster detection and diagnosis of heart functioning would aid cardiologists to provide appropriate treatment to the patients (subjects). In this paper, the concept of fractional-order calculus is employed for noise cancellation and artifacts removal in ECG signal as fractional-order differentiator proved to provide more peculiar details about signals than an integer-order differentiator. In the proposed method, R-peaks are detected using Riesz fractional-order digital differentiator (RFODD) based on the differencing method. The differentiation operation enhances the high-frequency components of the signal. So, QRS complex which is a high-frequency component in ECG is accentuated and the R-peaks are detected using appropriate threshold technique. The proposed method is tested on Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Beth Israel Hospital (MIT-BIH) arrhythmia database, and the experimental results of the proposed method have achieved a sensitivity of 99.95%, positive predictivity of 99.949% and an error rate of 0.095%. ECG waveforms are analyzed on various fractional orders of RFODD, and their performance parameters, i.e., sensitivity, positive predictivity and error rate, are also calculated.