A Wavelet-Based Approach for Motion Artifact Reduction in Ambulatory Seismocardiography

Wearable sensing has become a vital approach to cardiac health monitoring, and seismocardiography (SCG) is emerging as a promising technology in this field. However, the applicability of SCG is hindered by motion artifacts, including those encountered in practice of which the strongest source is walking. This holds back the translation of SCG to clinical settings. We therefore investigated techniques to enhance the quality of SCG signals in the presence of motion artifacts. To simulate ambulant recordings, we corrupted a clean SCG dataset with real-walking-vibrational noise. We decomposed the signal using several empirical-mode-decomposition methods and the maximum overlap discrete wavelet transform (MODWT). By combining MODWT, time-frequency masking, and nonnegative matrix factorization, we developed a novel algorithm which leveraged the vertical axis accelerometer to reduce walking vibrations in dorsoventral SCG. The accuracy and applicability of our method was verified using heart rate estimation. We used an interactive selection approach to improve estimation accuracy. The best decomposition method for reduction of motion artifact noise was the MODWT. Our algorithm improved heart rate estimation from 0.1 to 0.8 r-squared at −15 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Our method reduces motion artifacts in SCG signals up to a SNR of −19 dB without requiring any external assistance from electrocardiography (ECG). Such a standalone solution is directly applicable to the usage of SCG in daily life, as a content-rich replacement for other wearables in clinical settings, and other continuous monitoring scenarios. In applications with higher noise levels, ECG may be incorporated to further enhance SCG and extend its usable range. This work addresses the challenges posed by motion artifacts, enabling SCG to offer reliable cardiovascular insights in more difficult scenarios, and thereby facilitating wearable monitoring in daily life and the clinic.