Efficient and Robust Approach for Heartbeat Detection of ECG Signal

Abstract

This paper introduces an efficient and robust method for heartbeat detection based on the calculated angles between the successive samples of electrocardiogram (ECG) signal. The proposed approach involves three stages: filtering, computing the angles of the signal and thresholding. The suggested method is applied to two different types of ECG databases (QTDB and MIT-BIH). The results were compared with the other algorithms suggested in previous works. The proposed approach outperformed the other algorithms, in spite of its simplicity and their fast calculations. These features make it applicable in real-time ECG diagnostics systems. The suggested method was implemented in real-time using a low cost ECG acquisition system and it shows excellent performance.