A GPGPU-Based Algorithm Acceleration System for ECG Signal Processing

Electrocardiogram (ECG) is an important non-invasive technique for diagnosing cardiovascular diseases (CVD). After acquiring the patients' raw ECG signal data, signal processing is essential for the diagnosis. Conventional ECG signal processing is usually performed serially, which takes a long time to process signals with large amounts of data. In this study, we have proposed a GPGPU-based algorithm acceleration system to improve the efficiency of ECG signal processing. This system utilizes OpenCL for parallel algorithm development on GPGPU. GPGPU executes certain steps in the QRS complex detection algorithm via parallel computing, thereby accelerating the algorithmic process. Experimental results showed that the system achieved a speedup of 1.279 compared to serial computing when processing 39 ECG signal sequences in parallel. In addition, our system has been equipped with a progressive transmission mechanism and a function that intelligently determines whether an algorithm can be accelerated. These features make this system practical not only in biomedical signal processing but also in engineering and research fields with large amounts of data.