Analysis of Heart Rate Variability Using Noncontact Capacitive Coupling Electrocardiography: An Accuracy Assessment

zhijun xiao1, Maarten De Vos2, Christos Chatzichristos3, Yunyi Jiang4, Chenxi Yang5, Jianqing Li5, Chengyu Liu5
1State Key Laboratory of Bioelectronics, School of Instrument Science and Engineering, Southeast University, 2KU Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering / Dept. of Development & Regeneration, 3KU Leuven, 4the State Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering, School of Instrument Science and Engineering, Southeast University, 5Southeast University

Abstract

Non-contact capacitive coupling electrocardiography (cECG) is considered an effective means for long-term home-based cardiovascular disease monitoring. In this study, a non-contact cECG system was designed to verify the accuracy of heart rate variability (HRV) using cECG signal. Firstly, we established a non-contact cECG acquisition system integrating cECG and ECG modules, achieving synchronization between cECG and ECG signals through a common system clock, which is helpful for our verification. During the validation stage of HRV analysis, we employed signal quality assessment to eliminate poor-quality signals. Subsequently, High-quality cECG signals were processed for R-wave identification to obtain accurate RR intervals and calculate the HRV features, which were then compared with synchronized ECG signals. We analyzed eight different HRV features, including time-domain, frequency-domain, and nonlinear-features. The results demonstrate the feasibility of employing cECG for home-based HRV analysis.