CardioSim: a PC-based cardiac signal simulator using segmental modeling of electrocardiogram

Background: ECG modeling has wide application in signal representation, compression and synthetic ECG generation. Method: CardioSim generates synthetic ECG waveform in real-time using PC-based system. It provides dual facility of interface-based visualization with hardware-based waveform generation. It has two stages viz., development of reference model parameter database using Fourier model and generation of synthetic ECG waveform based on user defined parameters using normal and abnormal records (H, APC, PVC, LBBB, RBBB, P) from mitdb under PhysioNet. Result: It generates ten various ECG waveforms including one healthy and nine diseased rhythms from a single dynamic model with flexible user defined parameters. It gives higher reconstruction performance in terms of SNR and MSE. The mean SNR for different beat morphology is 89.2(H), 88.37(V), 86.32(A), 85.35(L), 97.22(P) and 83.3(R) and mean MSE is 2.45 × 10^-6(H), 3.14 × 10^-6(V), 8.98 × 10^-6(A), 5.82 × 10^-6(L), 0.43 × 10^-6(P) and 0.25 × 10^-6(R). Conclusion: It improves the performance parameters over published research work on ECG modeling and simulation. It can be used as a self-learning tool for entry level medical students.