Novel phonocardiography system for heartbeat detection from various locations

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Cardiovascular Diagnostics
• Signal Processing

Background:

• Heart rate estimation is crucial for cardiac function assessment.
• Traditional methods include electrocardiography (ECG) and pulse wave analysis.
• Phonocardiography (PCG) offers a non-invasive alternative for heart sound analysis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate a novel PCG measurement system for heart rate (HR) estimation.
• To determine optimal sensor locations for high-quality heart sound recording.
• To assess the system's performance in detecting S1 and S2 heart sounds.

Main Methods:

• Developed a PCG system with novel sensory and data processing components.
• Utilized Wavelet Transform (WT) and Shannon energy for signal preprocessing.
• Employed K-means clustering for heart sound classification.
• Evaluated 7 different sensor locations across 27 subjects.

Main Results:

• The PCG system achieved over 88.9% sensitivity for S1 detection and 77.4% for S2 detection compared to ECG.
• Sensor placement in the middle of the sternum demonstrated superior signal quality.
• Median sensitivity for S1 and S2 detection at the sternum placement reached 98.5% and 97.5%, respectively.

Conclusions:

• The proposed PCG system is effective for heart rate estimation.
• Standardizing sensor placement, particularly on the sternum, is critical for accurate heart sound detection.
• This system shows promise for non-invasive cardiac monitoring.