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.