Noise in ECG and how

to deal with it
Djordje Popovic, MD

Outline
¾ Frequency characteristics of ECG

¾ Most common sources of noise,

characteristics and examples

¾ How to deal with some of them (filtering

techniques)

1
 Frequency characteristics of
normal ECG

Sources of noise
¾ Power line interference
¾ Electrode contact noise, baseline drift and
motion artifacts

¾ EMG from the chest wall

¾ Instrumentation noise
¾ Electrosurgical noise

2
 Power line interference
¾ 60 Hz & multiples
¾ Up to 50% of QRS amplitude

Solutions 0
Magnitude Response (dB)

-50

¾ Notch filter at 60 Hz
Magnitude (dB)

-100

-150

-200

-250
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12
Frequency (kHz)
Magnitude Response (dB)
10

¾ Comb filter 0

-10

Sampl.rate=n x 60 Hz -20
Magnitude (dB)

Y(i)=X(i)-X(i-n)
-30

-40

-50

-60

-70
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25
Frequency (kHz)

3
 Adaptive filtering of power hum

Electrode contact noise

¾ Loose contact

¾ Motion artifact

¾ Baseline drift
due to respiration

4
 Solutions
¾ Typically <0.5 Hz signals (except for the
abrupt shifts due to motion)

¾ High-pass filtering with cut-off frequency at

~ 0.5Hz, realized in hardware or software

Abrupt motion artifact cancellation

¾ Adaptive recurrent
filtering

5
 EMG
¾ Amplitude
~ 10% ECG
¾ Broadband
(20 – 1000 Hz

Solutions
¾ Low-pass filter with cut-off frequency
>40Hz
¾ Adaptive filter with aVf as primary and
aVr-aVl as reference

6
 Summary
¾ Many different sources of noise, frequency
content of some of them overlaps with
ECG

¾ Limited capabilities of linear filtering

¾ Final solution dependent on each

particular case, and our goals

Questions?

7
 Use of adaptive filters in
ECG processing
Djordje Popovic, MD

Structure of an AF

¾ S1/S2 or n1/n2 need not be the same, only correlated in some way !!

8
 Noise cancellation

¾ Power line interference ¾ Baseline drift

EMG cancellation

9
 Arrhythmia detection

¾ Goal: to cancel normal QRS complexes,

and to analyze the signal that remains
after the cancellation

Detection of ectopic beats

10
 P-wave analysis

Atrial fibrillation and/or flatter

11