Computerized Cardiotocography: A Software to Generate Synthetic Signals

Abstract

In recent years there has been an increasing interest in developing computerized methods to analyse cardiotocographic recordings, due to the widespread use of cardiotocography to record foetal heart rate and uterine activity signals and the recognized inter and intra-observer variability in the visual evaluation of these signals, in recent years there has been an increasing interest in developing computerized methods to analyse cardiotocographic recordings. As a result of this trend, new biomedical software and analysing algorithms have been enforced to replace the traditional interpretation of cardiotocographic traces. Artificial cardiotocographic signals play a predominant role in testing performance of these software. The present study presents a software for simulating synthetic cardiotocographic recordings developed in order to cover a wide range of physiological conditions and recording situations. It allows the simulation of the main features and characteristics of a real cardiotocographic trace (baseline fluctuation, accelerations, decelerations and contractions). Moreover, it permits the simulation of anomalies due to the acquisition system and/ or cardiac arrhythmia (signal loss and outliers). All the parameters used in the simulation can be set and modified at user choice. The proposed software, which generates synthetic signals resembling real cardiotocographic recordings, facilitates the comparison of different signal processing methods in order to establish their performances and could be employed also as a teaching tool for demonstration to medical students and others.