Efficient and lightweight detection of PPG onset and systolic peaks using implementable time-domain strategies

Abstract

A majority of clinically reliable Photoplethysmogram (PPG) signal features necessitate exact location of PPG onset and systolic peaks. So far, state-of-the-art researches in the field of PPG peak detection is lagging due to the use of amplitude thresholding, complicated techniques or pathophysiologically limited datasets. In this paper, a robust algorithm is developed that primarily uses a novel combination of PPG-derivative, trigonometric area of the curve (TAOC), slope reversal and time-domain based lightweight methodologies to uncover the precise location of PPG onset and systolic peaks. Rigorous evaluation of the algorithm is conducted over 2,16,374 beats, collected from standard databases together with the PPG signal acquired from healthy and cardiac subjects. Superiority of the algorithm is presented by high average accuracy, sensitivity, predictivity and error as 99.69%, 99.77%, 99.92% and 0.31%. The adopted lightweight methodologies and high-speed execution over a wide pathophysiological variety presents immense promises for implementation in standard healthcare applications.