Definition and implementation of a real-time, high-speed ECG compression and storage system

A PC-based system has been developed to implement lossless data compression of electrocardiographic signals. Both temporal and amplitude compression are employed to achieve significant compression ratios while minimizing computational intensity in the interests of an ultimate ambulatory realization. Single template comparison, implemented in a complex dynamic registration scheme, serves to compress the amplitude of each beat. The amplitude compression enhances the effects of the second compression stage implemented in a custom VLSI circuit. Temporal compression is achieved with a computationally simple run-length coding algorithm. Lossless compression techniques have been strictly adhered to in the interest of completely faithful signal reconstruction after decompression. While the system currently handles sampling rates of 1 kHz, the algorithms and hardware are capable of achieving rates exceeding 5 kHz, and would therefore be useful in ventricular late potential detection settings