A successive cancellation algorithm for fetal heart-rate estimation using an intrauterine ECG signal

In this paper, we present a two-stage successive cancellation (SC) algorithm that sequentially separates fetal and maternal heartbeats from an intrauterine electrocardiogram (IuECG) signal containing both fetal and maternal QRS complexes. The ECG signal is modeled as a series of fetal, maternal, and noise events. Peak detection is first employed to locate the potential fetal and maternal QRS complexes, referred to as candidate events. Each stage automatically generates a template of a source from the candidate events in the initialization period, and thereafter performs classification of the remaining candidate events based on a template matching technique. The detected events of the stronger signal are subtracted from the composite ECG signal prior to initialization and classification of the weaker signal. Once the fetal and maternal complexes are successfully detected and separated, a counting mechanism is utilized to derive the corresponding heart rates. Computer simulation results on real IuECG data demonstrate the effectiveness of the SC algorithm.