SCHOOL OF ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING

ECE2006 – DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING

PROJECT REPORT ON:

ECG SIGNAL PROCESSING USING FFT AND
WINDOWED FILTER IN MATLAB

SUBMITTED BY:
1) K.KRISHNA BHARGAV - 18BEC0086
2) M.CHETAN KRISHNA - 18BEC0106
3) V.SUCHARAN REDDY - 18BEC0007

SUBMITTED TO :
Dr. SHWETA B THOMAS
ACKNOWLEDGMENT:

We would like to thank our university for giving us an opportunity

to do this project and helping us to learn new things. We would
also like to thank our professor Dr.SHWETA B THOMAS for
accepting our project and helping us. We would like to thank
fellow friends and classmates who directly or indirectly helped us
to complete the project successfully.

ABSTRACT :

ECG(electrocardiogram) is one of the major tool in hospital

purpose. Signal processing today is performed in the vast majority
of systems for ECG analysis and interpretation.

The objective of ECG signal processing is manifold and comprises

the improvement of measurement accuracy and reproducibility and
extraction of information not readily available from the signal
through visual assessment.

It is mainly used to measure and determine the heart rate and it’s
behavior is in terms of signal. It helps us analyze a person’s heart
function and can detect any malfunction through the signals and
digital signal processing.

So in this project we are going to analyze the ECG signal through

MATLAB software and detecting R-Peaks and the finding the
distance between peaks to calculate the heart rate of a person.
REQUIREMENTS:
 ECG SIGNAL

 MATLAB SOFTWARE

INTRODUCTION :

The electrocardiogram (ECG) is a time-varying signal reflecting

the ionic current flow which causes the cardiac fibers to contract
and subsequently relax. The surface ECG is obtained by recording
the potential difference between two electrodes placed on the
surface of the skin. A single normal cycle of the ECG represents
the successive atrial depolarization and ventricular depolarization
which occur with every heart beat. Simply put, the ECG (EKG) is
a device that measures and records the electrical activity of the
heart from electrodes placed on the skin in specific locations.

The ECG is nothing but the recording of the hearts electrical

activity. The deviations in the normal electrical patterns indicate
various cardiac disorders. Cardiac cells, in the normal state are
electrically polarized. Their inner sides are negatively charged
relative to their outer sides. These cardiac cells can lose their
normal negativity in a process called depolarization, which is the
fundamental electrical activity of the heart.
This depolarization is propagated from cell to cell, producing a
wave of depolarization that can be transmitted across the entire
heart. This wave of depolarization produces a flow of electric
current and it can be detected by keeping the electrodes on the
surface of the body. Once the depolarization is complete, the
cardiac cells are able to restore their normal polarity by a process
called re-polarization.

We use frequency domain to study all the features of ECG signals,

and here we use FFT(Fast Fourier Transform) to accomplish this.

BACKGROUND AND MECHANISM:

A usual ECG signal contains P,Q,R,S and T waves. Signals from

these electrodes are brought to simple electrical circuits with
amplifiers and analogue – digital converters. Each ECG Wave
represents as follows:

P wave - the sequential activation (depolarization) of the right and

left atria.

QRS complex - right and left ventricular depolarization T wave -

ventricular depolarization.

U wave - origin not clear, probably after depolarization in the

ventricles.
Signal acquisition : ECG signal for digital signal processing and
heart rate calculation is acquired by a measurement card of known
sampling frequency. Analogue signal pre-processing is done by a
simple amplifier circuit designated for ECG signal measurement.
Raw signal acquired by measuring card with simple ECG
amplifier circuit.

METHODOLOGY:
 Load the ECG signal.
 First the signal obtained is in time domain and we
convert that time domain signal into frequency domain
and we do this by using FFT(Fast Fourier transform).

 Now we will remove the low frequency components from

the signal.

 And now after removing the low frequency components

we use IFFT(Inverse Fast Fourier Transform) to convert it
back into time domain.

 Now by using the windowed filter we locate the

local maxima of the wave/graph.

 Later we ignore the small values present in the graph by

using some threshold and will store the significant
values.

 By finding the minimum distance between the R-peaks

now we will adjust the filter size.

 Now we will repeat the finding the local maxima and

ignoring the small values steps again. This eliminates
the unwanted small peaks and as a result we get
required
R-peaks accurately.
 And at last the heart beat rate can be calculated by the
formula

Rate = 60*(sampling rate)/(R-R interval)

MATLAB CODE:
OUTPUT:

OUTPUT GRAPHS OF SAMPLE 1:-

OUTPUT GRAPHS OF SAMPLE 2:
CONCLUSION:

In this project we implemented the FFT and IFFT to determine and

analyze the ECG signal and it helped us to determine the heart rate of
the person and compare it to a healthy person’s heart rate.

In this way we can find the heart rate of a person through ECG signal
and can judge the health condition of a person.