Separation of MECG and FECG using CCA-EMD Process

Under-determined blind source separation aims to separate N non-stationary sources from M (

Efficient Blind Source Separation Algorithms with Applications in Speech and Biomedical Signal Processing

Blind source separation/extraction (BSS/BSE) is a powerful signal processing method and has been applied extensively in many fields such as biomedical sciences and speech signal processing, to extract a set of unknown input sources from a set of observations. Different algorithms of BSS were proposed in the literature, that need more investigations, related to the extraction approach, computational complexity, convergence speed, type of domain (time or frequency), mixture properties, and extraction performances. This work presents a three new BSS/BSE algorithms based on computing new transformation matrices used to extract the unknown signals. Type of signals considered in this dissertation are speech, Gaussian, and ECG signals. The first algorithm, named as the BSE-parallel linear predictor filter (BSE-PLP), computes a transformation matrix from the the covariance matrix of the whitened data. Then, use the matrix as an input to linear predictor filters whose coefficients being the unknown sources. The algorithm has very fast convergence in two iterations. Simulation results, using speech, Gaussian, and ECG signals, show that the model is capable of extracting the unknown source signals and removing noise when the input signal to noise ratio is varied from -20 dB to 80 dB. The second algorithm, named as the BSE-idempotent transformation matrix (BSE-ITM), computes its transformation matrix in iterative form, with less computational complexity. The proposed method is tested using speech, Gaussian, and ECG signals. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm significantly separate the source signals with better performance measures as compared with other approaches used in the dissertation. The third algorithm, named null space idempotent transformation matrix (NSITM) has been designed using the principle of null space of the ITM, to separate the unknown sources. Simulation results show that the method is successfully separating speech, Gaussian, and ECG signals from their mixture. The algorithm has been used also to estimate average FECG heart rate. Results indicated considerable improvement in estimating the peaks over other algorithms used in this work

Semi-blind source extraction algorithm for fetal electrocardiogram based on generalized autocorrelations and reference signals

AbstractBlind source extraction (BSE) has become one of the promising methods in the field of signal processing and analysis, which only desires to extract “interesting” source signals with specific stochastic property or features so as to save lots of computing time and resources. This paper addresses BSE problem, in which desired source signals have some available reference signals. Based on this prior information, we develop an objective function for extraction of temporally correlated sources. Maximizing this objective function, a semi-blind source extraction fixed-point algorithm is proposed. Simulations on artificial electrocardiograph (ECG) signals and the real-world ECG data demonstrate the better performance of the new algorithm. Moreover, comparisons with existing algorithms further indicate the validity of our new algorithm, and also show its robustness to the estimated error of time delay

Efficient fetal-maternal ECG signal separation from two channel maternal abdominal ECG via diffusion-based channel selection

There is a need for affordable, widely deployable maternal-fetal ECG monitors to improve maternal and fetal health during pregnancy and delivery. Based on the diffusion-based channel selection, here we present the mathematical formalism and clinical validation of an algorithm capable of accurate separation of maternal and fetal ECG from a two channel signal acquired over maternal abdomen

Blind source separation of underdetermined mixtures of event-related sources

International audienceThis paper addresses the problem of blind source separation for underdetermined mixtures (i.e., more sources than sensors) of event-related sources that include quasi-periodic sources (e.g., electrocardiogram (ECG)), sources with synchronized trials (e.g., event-related potentials (ERP)), and amplitude-variant sources. The proposed method is based on two steps: (i) tensor decomposition for underdetermined source separation and (ii) signal extraction by Kalman filtering to recover the source dynamics. A tensor is constructed for each source by synchronizing on the ''event'' period of the corresponding signal and stacking different periods along the second dimension of the tensor. To cope with the interference from other sources that impede on the extraction of weak signals, two robust tensor decomposition methods are proposed and compared. Then, the state parameters used within a nonlinear dynamic model for the extraction of event-related sources from noisy mixtures are estimated from the loading matrices provided by the first step. The influence of different parameters on the robustness to outliers of the proposed method is examined by numerical simulations. Applied to clinical electroencephalogram (EEG), ECG and magnetocardiogram (MCG), the proposed method exhibits a significantly higher performance in terms of expected signal shape than classical source separation methods such as piCA and FastICA

Improving Maternal and Fetal Cardiac Monitoring Using Artificial Intelligence

Early diagnosis of possible risks in the physiological status of fetus and mother during pregnancy and delivery is critical and can reduce mortality and morbidity. For example, early detection of life-threatening congenital heart disease may increase survival rate and reduce morbidity while allowing parents to make informed decisions. To study cardiac function, a variety of signals are required to be collected. In practice, several heart monitoring methods, such as electrocardiogram (ECG) and photoplethysmography (PPG), are commonly performed. Although there are several methods for monitoring fetal and maternal health, research is currently underway to enhance the mobility, accuracy, automation, and noise resistance of these methods to be used extensively, even at home. Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help to design a precise and convenient monitoring system. To achieve the goals, the following objectives are defined in this research: The first step for a signal acquisition system is to obtain high-quality signals. As the first objective, a signal processing scheme is explored to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of signals and extract the desired signal from a noisy one with negative SNR (i.e., power of noise is greater than signal). It is worth mentioning that ECG and PPG signals are sensitive to noise from a variety of sources, increasing the risk of misunderstanding and interfering with the diagnostic process. The noises typically arise from power line interference, white noise, electrode contact noise, muscle contraction, baseline wandering, instrument noise, motion artifacts, electrosurgical noise. Even a slight variation in the obtained ECG waveform can impair the understanding of the patient's heart condition and affect the treatment procedure. Recent solutions, such as adaptive and blind source separation (BSS) algorithms, still have drawbacks, such as the need for noise or desired signal model, tuning and calibration, and inefficiency when dealing with excessively noisy signals. Therefore, the final goal of this step is to develop a robust algorithm that can estimate noise, even when SNR is negative, using the BSS method and remove it based on an adaptive filter. The second objective is defined for monitoring maternal and fetal ECG. Previous methods that were non-invasive used maternal abdominal ECG (MECG) for extracting fetal ECG (FECG). These methods need to be calibrated to generalize well. In other words, for each new subject, a calibration with a trustable device is required, which makes it difficult and time-consuming. The calibration is also susceptible to errors. We explore deep learning (DL) models for domain mapping, such as Cycle-Consistent Adversarial Networks, to map MECG to fetal ECG (FECG) and vice versa. The advantages of the proposed DL method over state-of-the-art approaches, such as adaptive filters or blind source separation, are that the proposed method is generalized well on unseen subjects. Moreover, it does not need calibration and is not sensitive to the heart rate variability of mother and fetal; it can also handle low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions. Thirdly, AI-based system that can measure continuous systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) with minimum electrode requirements is explored. The most common method of measuring blood pressure is using cuff-based equipment, which cannot monitor blood pressure continuously, requires calibration, and is difficult to use. Other solutions use a synchronized ECG and PPG combination, which is still inconvenient and challenging to synchronize. The proposed method overcomes those issues and only uses PPG signal, comparing to other solutions. Using only PPG for blood pressure is more convenient since it is only one electrode on the finger where its acquisition is more resilient against error due to movement. The fourth objective is to detect anomalies on FECG data. The requirement of thousands of manually annotated samples is a concern for state-of-the-art detection systems, especially for fetal ECG (FECG), where there are few publicly available FECG datasets annotated for each FECG beat. Therefore, we will utilize active learning and transfer-learning concept to train a FECG anomaly detection system with the least training samples and high accuracy. In this part, a model is trained for detecting ECG anomalies in adults. Later this model is trained to detect anomalies on FECG. We only select more influential samples from the training set for training, which leads to training with the least effort. Because of physician shortages and rural geography, pregnant women's ability to get prenatal care might be improved through remote monitoring, especially when access to prenatal care is limited. Increased compliance with prenatal treatment and linked care amongst various providers are two possible benefits of remote monitoring. If recorded signals are transmitted correctly, maternal and fetal remote monitoring can be effective. Therefore, the last objective is to design a compression algorithm that can compress signals (like ECG) with a higher ratio than state-of-the-art and perform decompression fast without distortion. The proposed compression is fast thanks to the time domain B-Spline approach, and compressed data can be used for visualization and monitoring without decompression owing to the B-spline properties. Moreover, the stochastic optimization is designed to retain the signal quality and does not distort signal for diagnosis purposes while having a high compression ratio. In summary, components for creating an end-to-end system for day-to-day maternal and fetal cardiac monitoring can be envisioned as a mix of all tasks listed above. PPG and ECG recorded from the mother can be denoised using deconvolution strategy. Then, compression can be employed for transmitting signal. The trained CycleGAN model can be used for extracting FECG from MECG. Then, trained model using active transfer learning can detect anomaly on both MECG and FECG. Simultaneously, maternal BP is retrieved from the PPG signal. This information can be used for monitoring the cardiac status of mother and fetus, and also can be used for filling reports such as partogram

Fetal electrocardiogram extraction by sequential source separation in the wavelet domain

This work addresses the problem of fetal electrocardiogram extraction using blind source separation (BSS) in the wavelet domain. A new approach is proposed, which is particularly advantageous when the mixing environment is noisy and time-varying, and that is shown, analytically and in simulation, to improve the convergence rate of the natural gradient algorithm. The distribution of the wavelet coefficients of the source signals is then modeled by a generalized Gaussian probability density, whereby in the time-scale domain the problem of selecting appropriate nonlinearities when separating mixtures of both sub- and super-Gaussian signals is mitigated, as shown by experimental results

Ventricular and Atrial Activity Estimation Through Sparse ECG Signal Decompositions

This paper explores a novel approach for ventricular and atrial activities estimation in electrocardiogram (ECG) signals, based on sparse source separation. Sparse decompositions of ECG over signal-adapted multi-component dictionaries can lead to natural separation of its components. In this work, dictionaries of functions adapted to ventricular and atrial activities are respectively defined. Then, the weighted orthogonal matching pursuit algorithm is used to unmix the two components of ECG signals. Despite the simplicity of the approach, results are very promising, showing the capacity of the algorithm to generate realistic estimations of atrial and ventricular activities

Generalized recursive algorithm for fetal electrocardiogram isolation from non-invasive maternal electrocardiogram

Non-invasive maternal electrocardiogram recording is the least unpleasant method to record a weak fetal electrocardiogram signal. The importance of this recording lies in the fact that it reveals crucial information about the fetal health state, especially during the last four weeks of pregnancy. This paper will be concerned with a new adaptive algorithm, namely the generalized recursive algorithm, to isolate and get the fetal electrocardiogram from the abdominal maternal electrocardiogram. This is achieved using a non-invasive method for bi-channel maternal electrocardiogram recordings i.e., with the thoracic maternal electrocardiogram as a reference signal, and the abdominal maternal electrocardiogram as a primary signal. Prior to this procedure, the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) method is applied to the abdominal electrocardiogram signal to clean it from any additive noise and the baseline wandering that is generally present on the raw recordings. The proposed new adaptive filter is shown to deliver improved characteristics through simulations. These simulations were performed on both synthetic and actual signals. This work was compared with the normalized least mean square algorithm