Extension and detailed overview of the HRVFrame framework for heart rate variability analysis

The analysis of heart rate variability (HRV) is an important diagnostic method for detection and assessment of cardiac abnormalities. The availability of complete computer frameworks that can aid researchers in the field of HRV analysis is limited due to the large number of different feature extraction methods. A recently developed framework for feature extraction from cardiac rhythm called HRVFrame is promising, because it allows a user to access more than 40 implemented linear and nonlinear methods. The aim of this paper is to provide a more detailed overview of this framework and all of its capabilities and recent extensions. Additionally, the aim is to encourage the use of HRVFrame as a free and open-source tool for developing medical applications based on Java programming language. A comparison of the framework with existing solutions for cardiac rhythm analysis is provided.