Efficient R-peak detection algorithm for real-time analysis of ECG in portable devices

Detection of R-peaks in an electrocardiogram (ECG) acquisition is the primary goal of any algorithm for the automatic processing of ECG signals. Several methods have been proposed in the past to accomplish this task, but usually they are designed for the use in clinical situations, where strict real-time requirements are not always needed and availability of devices with high computational resources is not a problem. The recent and broad success of personal and portable devices for health monitoring has opened a new scenario, in which new algorithms need to be developed in order to satisfy constraints due to limited computational resources and the need of having embedded and real-time data processing. This work describes an efficient algorithm for the R-peak detection, designed for low-cost and low-performing portable devices. Performance of the proposed approach, evaluated with a set of well-known ECG waveform, is comparable with traditional methods found in literature. Finally, the successful implementation of the algorithm in a smartphone-based low-cost ECG acquisition system has validated the feasibility of the proposed approach.