An integrated framework for evaluation on typical ECG-derived respiration waveform extraction and respiration.

Abstract Objective ECG-derived respiration (EDR) methods have been developed during the past decades to obtain respiration-relevant information. However, it is still necessary to compare the performance of these methods under uniform conditions for reasonable application. Approach: In this paper, the performance of 10 feature-based EDR methods was evaluated comprehensively on three aspects: sampling rate, noise, and window length. The Fantasia database was used in this study, as it contained ECG signals and simultaneously measured respiration signals. The performance was quantified by two parameters: waveform correlation and breathing rate (BR) errors. Main results: The BR errors of AMarea, AMQR, AMR were all below 2 beats per minute (bpm) when the sampling rate was above 150 Hz, while they decreased sharply by about 60% when the sampling rate was below 150 Hz. FMRR presented stable performance with an error below 2 bpm at different sampling rates. The effect of noise was obviously found in amplitude-based EDR methods, with the maximum decreased by about 40% in waveform correlation. For all EDR methods, significant increase of BR errors occurred with the window shorting from 32 s to 16 s in the frequency-based technique. In addition, about 30%–40% of the window cannot obtain the BR error, calculated based on the time-based technique, within an 8 s window. Significance: We proposed a comprehensive and integrated evaluation on typical ECG-derived respiration waveform extraction and respiration rate calculation, providing references for algorithm selection based on different requirements.