Key result
Baseline wander tracking improves signal to error ratio over high-dynamic-range analog front-ends in synthetic ECGs.
Why the study?
Long-term ECG signals suffer from baseline disturbances during physical activity, especially with dry surface or esophageal electrodes used for prolonged recording, requiring improved artifact rejection methods.
A novel baseline wander tracking algorithm improves artifact rejection and signal-to-error ratio for long-term, low-power ECG recording systems.
May enhance long-term wearable ECG fidelity; leaves open validation in real-world patient recordings.
Long-term electrocardiogram (ECG) signals might suffer from relevant baseline disturbances during physical activity. Motion artifacts in particular are more pronounced with dry surface or esophageal electrodes which are dedicated to prolonged ECG recording. In this paper we present a method called baseline wander tracking (BWT) that tracks and rejects strong baseline disturbances and avoids concurrent saturation of the analog front-end. The proposed algorithm shifts the baseline level of the ECG signal to the middle of the dynamic input range. Due to the fast offset shifts, that produce much steeper signal portions than the normal ECG waves, the true ECG signal can be reconstructed offline and filtered using computationally intensive algorithms. Based on Monte Carlo simulations we observed reconstruction errors mainly caused by the non-linearity inaccuracies of the DAC. However, the signal to error ratio of the BWT is higher compared to an analog front-end featuring a dynamic input ranges above 15 mV if a synthetic ECG signal was used. The BWT is additionally able to suppress (electrode) offset potentials without introducing long transients. Due to its structural simplicity, memory efficiency and the DC coupling capability, the BWT is dedicated to high integration required in long-term and low-power ECG recording systems.
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Niederhäuser et al. (2015) studied ECG baseline disturbances. Baseline wander tracking (BWT) vs. Analog front-end with dynamic input range >15 mV was evaluated on Signal to error ratio. Baseline wander tracking (BWT) achieved a higher signal to error ratio compared to an analog front-end with a dynamic input range above 15 mV when using synthetic ECG signals.
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