Huffman Coding based ECG Processing For Compression-Distortion Tradeoff

ECG is a fundamental cardiac signal which finds rigorous use in diagnosis of several cardio-respiratory diseases. Therefore, compression techniques, that are associated with high distortion upon reconstruction, are not acceptable in maximum cases. In our proposed approach, a noble huffman coding based compression technique for ECG signal is proposed. It offers high compression ratio (CR) with minimal percentage mean square difference (PRD). Upon testing on MIT-BIH recordings, it exhibits maximum PRD of only 0.445% while offering CR of 5.914. Additionally, the algorithm offers flexibility to decrease PRD value at the cost of CR, obtained by tuning a single parameter. This makes the setup even appropriate for applications where CR is of uttermost importance, even with some accepted distortion.