Non-invasive foetal heartbeat rate extraction from an underdetermined single signal

Abstract

Extraction of foetal heartbeat rate from a single passive sound sensor on the mother’s abdomen is demonstrated. The extraction is based on the assumption that a disjoint band of frequencies exist and foetal signal is concentrated in this band, and further that it can be represented conveniently as a set of wavelet coefficients. The algorithm has been applied to each stream of data obtained from six different channels and the detection performance is elaborated. The algorithm has also been tested on signals from non-pregnant abdomens to show successful rejection of adult heartbeat. The extraction of the desired signal is done in two stages so as to eliminate components from the maternal heart-beat.