Towards noise immune detection of fetal QRS complexes

The noninvasive fetal electrocardiography is a source of more precise information on the fetal heart activity than the measurements based on Doppler ultrasound signals. However, the clinical diagnostic applications of this technique are limited by difficulty with successful detection of small amplitude fetal QRS complexes. In this study, we investigate the influence of different stages of fetal signals processing on the detection performance. The main propositions of the paper are: application of normalized matched filtering to fetal QRS complexes enhancement and a new approach to the final detection of the complexes. Compared to the classical detectors, the proposed new one allows a significant increase of the detection performance for signals of very different quality. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.