A two dimensional wavelet packet approach for ECG compression

An improved compression algorithm for ECG signals is presented using temporal alignment of beats and 2-D wavelet packet transform (WPT). This 2-D transform based approach utilizes the fact that the electrocardiogram (ECG) signals generally show two types of correlation, namely correlation between subsequent samples within each ECG cycle (intrabeat) and correlation between subsequent cycles (interbeat). One simple compression algorithm in the 2-D WPT domain, which is applied to some records in the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database shows lower percent root mean square difference (PRD) than 1-D wavelet based compression methods for the same compression ratio (CR).