Sarad Joshi and Aniket Kumar

LABVIEW Based Low Noise ECG Signal

Processing

Sarad Joshi1 and Aniket Kumar2

Abstract
This paper deals with the study and analysis of ECG signal processing by LABVIEW.
It includes generation of ECG signal, filtering of ECG signal and its processing.
LABVIEW have processing capabilities which provides robust and efficient environment
for solving all problems related to ECG signal processing. It also contains an ECG feature
extraction application to extract ECG features more conveniently.

Keywords: ECG signal processing, Digital filter, LABVIEW Signal processing tool
kit, ECG facture extraction

INTRODUCTION There are certain designated places on the

E
body where these leads are placed. The
CG (electrocardiogram) is the primary
electrical signal generated is very small order
diagnostic tool to measure and record
of 0.001 to 0.003v and within the frequency
the electrical activities of the heart. It
range of 0.05 to 100 Hz. It becomes prominent
measure the electric currents started in the
under abnormal conditions such as
extra-cellular fluid due to the potential
electrolyte imbalance and drug toxicity .In
changes which takes place in the cell
recent times, a number of techniques have
membrane of heart. The ECG features
been propose to detect various features.
provide the information which helps in
diagnosing of diseases which include heart The National Instrumentation has
rhythm, enlargement of certain chambers, specially designed the LABVIEW as software
intact ion of electrical conduction path and with aim is to provide easy and powerful
even the ischemic positions in the event of a data acquisition purpose. Thus, LABVIEW
heart attack which is caused by the software can be used for various purposes
disturbances of the heart’s electrical activity. due to its known capability like data
recording, visualization, filtering and many
Electrocardiogram is basically a voltmeter
others. LABVIEW has Advanced Signal
that uses up to 12 different leads placed on
Processing Toolkit which includes wavelet,
body parts to get the proper information.
1. School of Biomedical Engineering, N.I.T. Kurukshetra, India
2. S.I.E.T., A Deemed to be University, Meerut, U.P., India

50 International Journal of Contemporary Research in Engg. and Tech. Vol. 8, No. 2, 2018
 LABVIEW Based Low Noise ECG Signal Processing

time-series analysis, time-frequency analysis

and digital filter tool kit.
S. Correia calculated P-R interval and
heart rate using wavelet transformation and
compared with standard ECG signal for
abnormal detection. C. Saritha discussed the
detection of small variation of simulated,
normal and noise corrupted ECG signal using Fig. 2. Generated ECG signal
FFT and wavelet transform. The important
steps of converting analogue signal into ECG SIGNAL PROCESSING
digital signal with ECG as a special case is
Mostly, the noise and artifacts that within the
discussed. Study and analysis of ECG signal
frequency range of interest which shows
using digital signal processor is discussed in.
similar characteristics as the ECG that affects
PCA based analysis of ECG signal is
the recorded ECG signal. Therefore, it is
explained in. Authors also discussed
required to process the original ECG signal
telemedicine, mobile health application.
free from noise in order to get the useful
This paper shows the Digital Filter Design information.
Toolkit to design FIR and IIR digital filters
ECG signal processing can be divided into
which are used for floating and fixed point
two stages on the basis of functionality. One
implementation. LABVIEW is used to
is preprocessing and other is feature extrac-
implement real time filtering to de-noise the
tion. The preprocessing stage eliminates or
signal and real time visualization of the ECG.
suppresses the noise from the raw ECG signal
and the other stage, feature extraction pro-
ECG SIGNAL ACQUISITION
vides the extracts diagnostic information
In LABVIEW, simulink blocks are used to from the ECG signal. Advanced Signal
send the live data into simulink models and Processing Toolkit (ASPT) and the Digital
for giving these signals as a output. It uses Filter Design Toolkit (DFDT). ASPT helps in
the ECG data in excel which is in CSV format. conveniently build signal processing appli-
The acquired data is processed in simulink cations for both stages, including baseline
and uses analog output block other data to wandering and for removing noise cancella-
an analog acquisition device which is shown tion etc. Preprocessing of ECG signals helps
in Fig. 2. in eliminating the contaminants from the
ECG signal.
The Baseline wandering and the Power
line interference are most significant and
strongly affect the ECG signal analysis. The
power line interference is a narrow band
noise centered at 60 Hz with a bandwidth less
than a 1Hz and can be removed by ECG
signal acquisition hardware. The other noises
are wideband and have a complex stochastic
process. The baseline wandering and other
wideband noises are not eliminated or
suppressed by hardware then a powerful and
feasible software scheme for offline ECG
Fig. 1. ECG signal signal processing are used.

International Journal of Contemporary Research in Engg. and Tech. Vol. 8, No. 2, 2018 51
Sarad Joshi and Aniket Kumar

The baseline wandering is usually due to Equation 1 is the transfer function of IIR
respiration at frequencies between 0.15 and filter. Where N represents order if the filter,
0.3Hz. When the baseline wandering is b(k) represents coefficient of non-recursive
removed then the output ECG signal part, ak represents coefficients of recursive
becomes more stationary than original. The feedback part.
noise may be complex stochastic process N
b( z) z
k
B(z)
within a wideband. One can suppress these H (Z )
A( z )
K 0
N k (1)
1 a( z) z
noises by using digital filter. Low pass K 1

infinite impulse response IIR filter whose cut- Butterworth and Chebyshev filter are the
off frequency is 100Hz, can be applied to examples of reference analog prototype filter.
linear time-invariant system e.g. digital Here, using 2nd order Butterworth analog
filters. IIR filters block schematic as shown in filter as all the poles of the filter must be
Fig. 4. located in the left half of s-plane i.e. to the left
of imaginary axis. Low pass Butterworth
filters are those filters whose frequency
response is a monotonous descending
function they are also known as maximum
flat magnitude filters. It has 3db attenuation
at a frequency of 1Hz.
1
(2)
2
H a
(j ) H a
( j ). H a ( j )
1 2n

Equation 2 is the expression for Butterworth

filter. Where the frequency and N is equal to
the order of filter.

Fig. 3. ECG signal processing flowchart RESULT

When using IIR filter with 2nd order Butter-
worth low pass filter it results into
The aim of IIR filter designing is to find attenuation of higher frequency more steeply
desirable normalized cut-off frequencies, and also reduces signal amplitude to one
transition width, maximum pass band forth when frequency gets double. It removes
attenuation etc. the noise by eliminating all the frequencies
above cut-off frequency and provides smooth
signal further. Thus, 2nd order filter gives
better and proper result.
In Fig. 5 shows that noises are strongly
suppressed by using digital filter while
keeping almost all the details of the ECG
signal invariant.

CONCLUSION
LABVIEW’s advanced signal processing
toolkit and digital filter design toolkit provide
robust and efficient environment for resolving
problems related to the processing of ECG
signal. This application has demonstrated the
Fig. 4. Block Schematic of Filter

52 International Journal of Contemporary Research in Engg. and Tech. Vol. 8, No. 2, 2018
 LABVIEW Based Low Noise ECG Signal Processing

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Fig. 6. Noised signal and de-noised signal

International Journal of Contemporary Research in Engg. and Tech. Vol. 8, No. 2, 2018 53