Removal of artifacts from electrocardiogram using digital filter

Electrocardiogram (ECG) is the graphical representation of heart functionality. The ECG finds its importance in the detection of cardiac abnormalities. The electrocardiographic signals are often contaminated by noise from diverse sources. It is essential to reduce these disturbances and improve the accuracy as well as reliability. The noises that commonly disturb the basic electrocardiogram are power line interference, electrode contact noise, motion artifacts, electromyography (EMG) noise, and instrumentation noise. These noises can be classified according to their frequency content. The noise signals have been generated and added to the ECG signal taken from MIT-BIH arrhythmia database. Digital filter structure such as window based FIR filter is proposed to maximally remove the noise from the ECG signal. The performance of these window based filters has been analyzed on the basis of peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR).