Detection of the electrocardiogram fiducial points in the phase space using the Euclidian distance measure

Abstract

The paper proposes a phase-space based algorithm applying the Euclidian distance measure enabling detection of heartbeats and characteristic (fiducial) points from a single-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) signal. It extends the QRS detection in the phase space by detecting the P and T fiducial points. The algorithm is derived by reconstructing the ECG signals in a two-dimensional (2D) phase space according to the delay method and utilizes geometrical properties of the reconstructed phase portrait of the signal in the phase space for the heartbeat and fiducial-point detection. It uses adaptive thresholding and the Euclidian distance measure between the signal points in the phase portrait as an alternative to the phase-portrait area calculation (Lee et al., 2002). It was verified with the QT Database (2011) and its performance was assessed using sensitivity (Se) and the positive predictive value (PPV). Results for the proposed algorithm are 99.06%, 99.75% and 99.66% for Se and 94.87%, 99.75% and 99.66% for PPV for the P points, heartbeats and T points, respectively.