Independent component analysis for reducing electrocardiographic interference in the multichannel electromyogram

Abstract

The aim of this work was to separate ECG artifacts from surface electromyogram (EMG) signals collected from erector spinae muscles with the blind source separation technique based on independent component analysis (ICA) and to investigate the separation at different interference levels. Using three EMG signals collected above erector spinal muscles from 5 subjects, the proposed method succeeds in separating the sources in both real and simulated signals. However, the ICA is not able to separate the signals when the signal-to-interference ratio is greater than 20 dB. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.