Detection of R Peaks and RR Intervals in Electrocardiogram Print-outs Using Wavelet Transforms and Hough Transforms

Abstract

The analysis of patient’s cardio-vascular activities using the ECG clinical paper printouts necessitates previous knowledge and practice. An important aspect of this is detecting the R peaks as this is needed to measure heart rate and to detect arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat). Prior researches on extraction of ECG data from paper image strips using image processing are limited. This study analyzes ECG readings and retrieves R peaks and RR time intervals using image processing methods. Using wavelet transforms and Hough transforms, lines of ECG waveforms were extracted. Extracting peaks from the line end points and then the RR intervals were also done using the developed algorithm. This methodology proved to have high accuracy in the detection of R peaks and RR intervals.