Extract Fetal ECG from Single-Lead Abdominal ECG by De-Shape Short Time Fourier Transform and Nonlocal Median

Abstract

The multiple fundamental frequency detection problem and the source separation problem from a single-channel signal containing multiple oscillatory components and a nonstationary noise are both challenging tasks. To extract the fetal electrocardiogram (ECG) from a single-lead maternal abdominal ECG, we need to solve both challenges. We propose a novel method to extract the fetal ECG from a single-lead maternal abdominal ECG, without any additional measurement. The algorithm is composed of three components. First, the maternal and fetal heart rates are estimated by the de-shape short time Fourier transform (STFT), which is a recently proposed nonlinear time-frequency analysis technique. The beat tracking technique is the second component which is applied to accurately obtain the maternal and fetal R peaks. The third component consists of establishing the maternal and fetal ECG waveforms by the nonlocal median. The algorithm is tested on two real databases with the annotation provided by experts (adfecgdb database and CinC2013 database) and a simulated database (fecgsym), and provides the state-of-the-art results. We conclude that with the proposed algorithm, the fetal ECG waveform and the fetal heart rate could be accurately obtained from the single-lead maternal abdominal ECG.