FETAL QRS COMPLEX DETECTION FROM ABDOMINAL ECG: A FUZZY APPROACH

Signal processing problems related to abdominal-lead fetal ECG include the cancellation of the maternal QRS complex, signal enhancement of the fetal QRS complex and detection of the presence of a fetal R-wave to compute the fetal heart rate. This paper describes an improved scheme for detecting the presence of the QRS complexes from the enhanced fetal electrocardiograph (ECG) signal obtained by using a fuzzy decision algorithm. The fuzzy detector incorporates a measure of uncertainty and can conclude that a maternal and fetal ECG is present in the maternal abdominal recordings. 1