Impulse rejection filter for artifact removal in spectral analysis of biomedical signals

Biomedical signals are frequently corrupted with artifact that occurs rarely, but is impulsive and large amplitude when it does occur. Because the artifact spans a broad frequency range that overlaps with the signal spectrum, linear filters cannot remove it. Because it is large in amplitude, it dominates characterizations of the signals based on second-order statistics such as correlation and spectral analysis. In this study we assess the ability of impulse rejection filters to remove the effect of synthetic PVCs in interbeat interval series from patients with a normal sinus rhythm. The simulation results demonstrate that the PVCs severely corrupt the estimated heart rate power spectral density (PSD), impulse rejection filters are effective at removing this effect, and the filter performance is robust to the choice of user-specified parameters.