[R-wave detection of ECG signal by using wavelet transform]

Abstract

The detection of R-wave of ECG is essential to the analysis of the heart rate variability (HRV). In this paper, an R-wave detection method using wavelet transform(WT) is presented in line with the principle of discrete wavelet transform(DWT) and multi-resolution technique (MRT). We made use of the special properties of dbl wavelet in time-domain, decomposed the original ECG signals into 3-level detailed signals on different frequency bands by using DWT with Mallat algorithm, and got appropriate threshold values in different high frequency bands to distinguish R-wave. It is concluded that the algorithm had significant effects on it, which is verified by MIT/BIH (Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Boston's Beth Israel Hospital) ECG Database. The results show that R-wave could be detected accurately and localized precisely by this method, even when the patient was seriously sick or the signal was disturbed by noise. Consequently the method has a quite high locating precision (its error is not more than two sampled points and about 85 percent of the points of R-wave in ECG signal are localized precisely) and the correct detection rate of R-wave is 99.8% by using wavelet transform, so this method is quite feasible.