QRS detection using S-Transform and Shannon energy

• This work makes a QRS detection based on S-Transform (TS).
• The TS allows us access to the frequency content of the QRS complexes without recourse to any filtering.
• Shannon energy is computed for each obtained local spectrum. Shannon energy highlights all QRSs, even those having a small amplitude.

This paper presents a novel method for QRS detection in electrocardiograms (ECG). It is based on the S-Transform, a new time frequency representation (TFR). The S-Transform provides frequency-dependent resolution while maintaining a direct relationship with the Fourier spectrum. We exploit the advantages of the S-Transform to isolate the QRS complexes in the time–frequency domain. Shannon energy of each obtained local spectrum is then computed in order to localize the R waves in the time domain.Significant performance enhancement is confirmed when the proposed approach is tested with the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database (MITDB). The obtained results show a sensitivity of 99.84%, a positive predictivity of 99.91% and an error rate of 0.25%. Furthermore, to be more convincing, the authors illustrated the detection parameters in the case of certain ECG segments with complicated patterns.