Noise and disturbance reduction for heart sounds in cycle-frequency domain based on nonlinear time scaling.

Abstract

Through an investigation of various clinical cases, heart sounds are found to be quasi-cyclostationary. Nonlinear time scaling from cycle-to-cycle is proposed to enhance cyclic stationarity, where nonlinear time scaling is approximated by a piecewise linear function. The techniques of cyclostationary signal processing are employed in this paper to reduce noise and disturbance in the cycle-frequency domain. Heart sounds can be theoretically recovered in the presence of additive, zero mean noise, and disturbance (perhaps non-Gaussian, nonstationary, or colored). The experimental tests in various conditions confirm the theoretical results.