DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF QRS AND NOISE DETECTORS FOR AMBULATORY ECG MONITORS

In ambulatory e. c. g. monitoring, a high level of noise results in false QRS detection. The authors present a compact low-powered QRS detector design with a noise detector circuit that identifies most false QRS detections so that it can disable alarms. They also present a standardized exercise protocol for testing the QRS detector. Data collected from subjects bending forward (for baseline drift), lifting a weight (for e. m. g. ), and jogging (for motion artefact) present a realistic test set for an ambulatory QRS detector. They observe error rates of the order of 1%; the noise detector identifies more than half of these. These techniques should reduce false alarms in arrhythmia monitoring systems.