SECOND CARDIAC SOUND ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES AND PERFORMANCE COMPARISON

This paper presents the applications of the spectrogram, Wigner distribution and wavelet transform analysis methods to the second cardiac sound S2 of the phonocardiogram signal (PCG). A comparison between these methods has shown the resolution differences between them. It is found that the spectrogram Short-Time Fourier Transform (STFT) cannot detect the two internals components of the second sound S2 (A2 and P2, atrial and pulmonary components respectively). The Wigner Distribution (WD) can provide time-frequency characteristics of the sound S2, but with insufficient diagnostic information as the two components (A2 and P2) are not accurately detected, appearing to be one component only. It is found that the wavelet transform (WT) is capable of detecting the two components, the aortic valve component A2 and pulmonary valve component P2, of the second cardiac sound S2. However, the standard Fourier transform can display these components in frequency but not the time delay between them. Furthermore, the wavelet transform provides more features and characteristics of the second sound S2 that will hemp physicians to obtain qualitative and quantitative measurements of the time-frequency characteristics.