Electrocardiogram Signal Analysis Using Zoom FFT

Kamalapriya Murugan

Renulakshmi Ramesh

Central Research Laboratory

Bharat Electronics
Bangalore,India
kamalapriyam@bel.co.in

Central Reasearch Laboratory

Bharat Electronics
Bangalore,India
renulakshmim@bel.co.in

Abstract This paper deals with the analysis of ECG

signals using zoom FFT. The Zoom FFT is interesting
because it blends complex down conversion, lowpass
filtering, and sample rate change through decimation
in a spectrum analysis application. It is used when
fine spectral resolution is needed within a small
portion of a signal's overall frequency range. In the
first step an attempt was made to generate ECG
waveforms by developing a suitable MATLAB
algorithm and in the second step, analysis of the ECG
is generated using zoom FFT .Then QRS complexes
were detected and each complex was used to find the
peaks of the individual waves like P and T, and also
their deviations. The results were compared with the
existing FFT methods.
Keywords Electrocardiogram (ECG), Zoom FFT, Spectral
Analysis.

INTRODUCTION
Virtually all sciences in the world contribute to the
maintenance of human health and the practice of medicine.
Medical physicists and biomedical engineers support the
effective utilization of this medical science and technology as
their responsibilities to enhance human health care with the
new development of the medical tools such as
Electrocardiogram (ECG). ECG is a broad term that includes
several more heart conditions [1].
The ECG is a noninvasive and the record of variation of the
biopotential signal of the human heartbeats. The noninvasive
technique meaning that this signal can be measured without
entering the body at all. Electrodes are placed on the users
skin to detect the bioelectric potentials given off by the heart
that reach the skins surface. The ECG detection which shows
the information of the heart and cardiovascular condition is
essential to enhance the patient living quality and appropriate
treatment. It is valuable and an important tool in diagnosing the
condition of the heart and various disorders [2].
The ECG is a realistic record of the direction and
magnitude of the electrical commotion that is generated by
depolarization and repolarization of the atria and ventricles [3].

Fig 1: ECG Signal

ECG varies from person to person due to the

difference in position, size, anatomy of the heart, age, relatively
body weight, chest configuration and various other factors.
There is strong evidence that hearts electrical activity embeds
highly distinctive characteristics, suitable for various
applications and diagnosis. The ECG is characterized by a
recurrent wave sequence of P, QRS, T and U wave associated
with each beat. The QRS complex is the most striking
waveform, caused by ventricular depolarization of the human
heart. A typical ECG wave of a normal heartbeat consists of a
P wave, a QRS complex, and a T wave. Fig. 1 depicts the basic
shape of a healthy ECG heartbeat signal with P, Q, R, S, J, T
and U characteristics and the standard ECG intervals QT
interval, ST interval and PR interval [4],[5],[6][7].
The previously proposed method of ECG signal
analysis was based on time domain method. But this is not
always adequate to study all the features of ECG signals.
Therefore the frequency representation of a signal is required.
The deviations in the normal electrical patterns indicate various
cardiac disorders [8], [9], [10].
This paper is structured as follows. Section 1
discusses the ECG signal. Section 3 gives a description of the
Zoom FFT .Section 4 describes proposed methods of ECG
signal analysis using Zoom FFT and section 5 concludes the
paper with results and discussions

I.

ZOOM FFT

The Zoom FFT is interesting because it blends

complex down conversion, lowpass filtering, and sample rate
change through decimation in a spectrum analysis application.
The Zoom FFT method of spectrum analysis is used when fine
spectral resolution is needed within a small portion of a signal's
overall frequency range. This technique is more efficient than
the traditional FFT in such a situation.
The Zoom-FFT is a process where an input signal is
mixed down to baseband and then decimated, prior to passing
it into a standard FFT. It is efficiently a subset of FFT. The
advantage is for example that if you have a sample rate of 10
MHz and require at least 10Hz resolution over a small
frequency band (say 1 KHz) then you do not need a 1 Mega
point FFT, just decimate by a factor of 4096 and use a 256
point FFT which is obviously quicker. In contrast, the zoomFFT uses digital down conversion techniques to localize the
standard FFT to a narrow band of frequencies that are centered
on a higher frequency. The zoom-FFT is used to reduce the
sample rate required when analyzing narrowband signals - E.G.
in HF communications. Thus, you can save a significant
amount of processing power and time using this method [11].

application in Ultrasonic blood flow analysis, R.F.

communications, Mechanical stress analysis and Doppler radar.

II.

ECG ANALYSIS

A lot of work has been done in the field of ECG

signal analysis using various approaches and methods [12][13].
The basic principle of all the methods however involves
transformation of ECG signal using different transformation
techniques including Fourier Transform, Hilbert Transform,
Wavelet transform etc. Physiological signals like ECG are
considered to be quasi-periodic in nature. They are of finite
duration and non stationary. Hence, a technique like Fourier
series (based on sinusoids of infinite duration) is inefficient for
ECG.
The zoom FFT analysis of ECG Signal is done in
MATLAB. MATLAB is a high performance and interactive
system which allows solving many technical problems. The
normal ECG wave form and the waveforms with abnormalities
are shown in Figures 2, 3 and 4 were loaded in MATLAB
workspace.
The zoom FFT algorithm was applied to the normal
ECG signal. The most important values to be analyzed are
regularity of the signal, the distances between characteristic
points and interferences in the shape of single heartbeat. Signal
may also contain artifacts which are generated by external
factors such as the movement of electrodes and the chest
muscles activity. This noise was detected and excluded before
the analysis in order to identify the exact proper ECG signal.
The shifted, filtered and down sampled signal was obtained
with the better resolution and less computation.

Fig 2: Zoom FFT for Spectral analysis

As a next step two ECG signals with abnormalities

were also analyzed. The abnormalities taken into consideration
are Sinus Tachycardia (Beat 145) and Sinus Bracardia (Rate of
45) and the figure are shown below.

Fig 4: ECG abnormality Sinus Tachycardia

Fig 3: Steps of Zoom FFT

The various advantages of the Zoom FFT include

increased frequency domain resolution, reduced hardware cost
and complexity and wider spectral range. Zoom FFT finds

III.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The normal as well as abnormal ECG signals were

analyzed using zoom FFT and the results were compared with
existing FFT methods. The two abnormalities that were
considered are tachycardia and Bracardia. Model ECG
waveforms were taken from the Physionet database [15], [16].

Fig 5: ECG abnormality Sinus Bracardia.

Windowing techniques were used to get the precise

spectrum and thus the information of the concentrated part. The
signals were analyzed and accordingly windowing function
was selected. Chebyshev, Hamming and Kaiser Window gave
good results [14].

As a part of the study spectral analysis of the normal

ECG signal as well as abnormal ECG signal were carried out.
In the experiment, it is assumed that the processor can deal
with 2048 points FFT in maximum. Then the ECG signal
mentioned above is divided into 8 parts equally. The resolution
of the spectrum got was 2048/2=1024. But for the 1/8 part
spectrum which is the concentrated part, the resolution

obtained was 2048*1/2*1/8=128. Fig 7 shows the

spectrum of 2048 samples FFT
After the Zoom-FFT, the spectrums for the original
signal, shifting signal, filtered signal and down sampling signal
was obtained. It was found that the resolution was 8 times
better than FFT. Therefore this resolution is good for the
analysis. Although Zoom-FFT is a good method to get precise
spectrum for the concentrated part, it still has some errors
comparing with FFT Therefore some windowing techniques
was used after down sampling to improve the spectrum.
One of the crucial steps in the ECG analysis is to
accurately detect the different waves forming the entire cardiac
cycle. Most of the studies based around wavelet transformation
identify 99.8% of ECG waveforms. Compared to the normal
FFT, Zoom FFT avoids limitations of bottleneck capability of
the processor, where in normal FFT algorithm cannot be
implemented. Quality of spectrum is far superior in zoom FFT
where by analysis of the ECG signal becomes easier.
The time consumption of the algorithm using a DSP
Processor needs to be studied, which would be our future work.
Windowing after the zoom FFT gives far excellent results.
Also since the application of Zoom FFT in electro
cardiology is relatively new field of research, many further
aspects like sensitivity require further investigations in order to
improve the clinical usefulness of this novel signal processing
technique. Simultaneously diagnostic and prognostic
significance of FFT techniques in various fields of electro
cardiology needs to be established in large clinical studies.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We would like to acknowledge the guidance and

support of Dr.A.T.Kalghatgi, Chief Scientist CRL BEL. We
would also thank to Dr.C.Ramesh, CRL BEL, for his technical
guidance, suggestions and constant encouragement.

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