Efficient Method for ECG Compression Using Two Dimensional Multiwavelet Transform

In this paper we introduce an effective ECG compression algorithm based on two dimensional multiwavelet transform. Multi-wavelets offer simultaneous orthogonality, symmetry and short support, which is not possible with scalar two-channel wavelet systems. These features are known to be important in signal processing. Thus multiwavelet offers the possibility of superior performance for image processing applications. The SPIHT algorithm has achieved notable success in still image coding. We suggested applying SPIHT algorithm to 2-D multi-wavelet transform of 2-D arranged ECG signals. Experiments on selected records of ECG from MIT-BIH arrhythmia database revealed that the proposed algorithm is significantly more efficient in comparison with previously proposed ECG compression schemes. Keywords— ECG signal compression, multi-rate processing, 2-D Multiwavelet, Prefiltering.