A Novel Spiking Neural Network for ECG signal Classification

The electrocardiogram (ECG) is one of the most extensively employed signals used to diagnose and predict cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). In recent years, several deep learning (DL) models have been proposed to improve detection accuracy. Among these, deep neural networks (DNNs) are the most popular, wherein the features are extracted automatically. Despite the increment in classification accuracy, DL models require exorbitant computational resources and power. This causes the mapping of DNNs to be slow; in addition, the mapping is challenging for a wearable device. Embedded systems have constrained power and memory resources. Therefore full-precision DNNs are not easily deployable on devices. To make the neural network faster and more power-efficient, spiking neural networks (SNNs) have been introduced for fewer operations and less complex hardware resources. However, the conventional SNN has low accuracy and high computational cost. Therefore, this paper proposes a new binarized SNN which modifies the synaptic weights of SNN constraining it to be binary (+1 and -1). In the simulation results, this paper compares the DL models and SNNs and evaluates which model is optimal for ECG classification. Although there is a slight compromise in accuracy, the latter proves to be energy-efficient.