Feature Extraction of Ballistocardiogram Signal

Cardiac arrest and other heart related diseases have become common in today‟s modern life style. It is at most important to detect the abnormalities before the damage is caused. Ballistocardiogram (BCG) is a non-invasive method used to detect the health of heart. Ballistocardiography (BCG) is a plot of repetitive motion of human body arising from the ejection of blood into the blood vessel. BCG is used to detect the Cardiac Output which is defined as “The amount of blood pumped by the heart in a minute”. BCG Signal is obtained from the sensors placed near the aorta which is the main artery, originating from left ventricle of extending down to the abdomen. BCG is found to be the promising method to detect the cardiovascular diseases. The data obtained from the sensors contains vibrations due to respiration, body movements and other disturbances. It is a plot of repetitive motion of human body arising from the ejection of blood into the blood vessel. Each BCG wave contains GHIJKLMN peaks. The features of BCG signals such as the amplitude of the peak and the distance between the H, I, J, K and L peaks are calculated. The delay between the BCG Signal and the ECG signal is found by finding the interval between the dominant peak „J‟ of BCG signal and the dominant peak „R‟ of ECG.