• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers D
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.198-205
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• 2005

In this paper, we proposed a new algorithm for the separation of fetal ECG from single channel abdominal ECG. The algorithm consists of a stage of demixing vector calculation for initial signal and a stage of fetal beat detection for the rest of signal. The demixing vector was obtained by applying independent component analysis technique to projected signals into time-frequency domain. For the test of this algorithm, simulation signals, De Lathauwer's data and some measured data, which was acquired from 8 healthy volunteers whose pregnant periods ranged from 22 weeks to 35 weeks and whose ages from 27 to 37, were used. For each data, the accuracy of fetal beat detection was $100\%$ and with the location of fetal beats, fetal heart rate variability and morphology could be offered. In conclusion, this proposed algorithm showed the possibility of fetal beat separation with a single channel abdominal ECG and it might be adopted to a fetal health monitoring system, by which a single channel abdominal ECG is acquired.