A robust R-R interval estimator

Automated electrocardiogram monitoring traditionally involves the detection of QRS complexes. The techniques generally used to detect the QRS complexes are: (1) differentiation and (2) bandpass filtering. Both these methods are susceptible to noise and the performance degrades with decreasing S/N ratio. Therefore a new approach, that is relatively immune to noise, is suggested. The method uses a matched filter that maximizes the ratio of a peak signal voltage to RMS noise at the system output. It is easy to implement on a digital computer adding flexibility to the scheme.