Biologically Inspired Evolutionary Computing tools for the Extraction of Fetal ElectroCardioGram

Abstract

Signals recorded from the human body provide valuable information about the biological activities of body organs. The spectral properties of different organs help in medical diagnosis. Even small changes in functioning of organs is indicated by the changes in their spectra. Fetal heart rate extraction from the abdominal ECG is of great importance because the information carried by it is helpful in assessing appropriately the fetus well-being during pregnancy. Fetal ECG is always contaminated by a drift and interference caused by several bioelectric phenomena, or by various types of noise, such as intrinsic noise from the recorder and noise from electrode-skin contact. The low Signal to noise Ratio of fetal ECG makes it difficult to analyze it effectively. Accurate detection of QRS complex is a pre-requisite in the assessment of fetal heart beat.In this paper we utilize an intelligent Adaptive Filter for noise cancellation in the effective extraction and analysis of fetal ECG. The PSO based adaptive noise cancellation technique is shown to be superior to the conventional FIR adaptive filtering.