Patent ID: 9572504
Date: 2017-02-21
CPC Classifications: A61B,G16H,G16Z

Claim:
1. A system for monitoring maternal and fetal cardiac activity comprising: a. at least one electrocardiogram sensor configured to contact the skin of the abdomen of a pregnant human subject and detect fetal and maternal cardiac electrical activity; b. at least one acoustic sensor configured to contact the skin of the abdomen of a pregnant human subject and detect fetal and maternal cardiac electrical activity; c. a garment configured to position and contact the at least one electrocardiogram sensor and the at least one acoustic sensor on the abdomen of the pregnant human subject; d. a specifically programmed computer system comprising: at least one specialized computer machine, comprising: a non-transient memory, electronically storing particular computer executable program code; and at least one computer processor which, when executing the particular program code, becomes a specifically programmed computing processor that is configured to at least perform the following operations: receiving raw Electrocardiogram (ECG) signals data from the at least one pair of ECG sensors; wherein the at least one pair of ECG sensors is positioned in on an abdomen of a pregnant human subject; wherein the raw ECG signals data comprise data representative of a N number of raw ECG signals (raw N-ECG signals data) which are being acquired in real-time from the at least one pair of ECG sensors; digital signal filtering the raw ECG signals data to form filtered N-ECG signals data having filtered N-ECG signals; detecting maternal heart peaks in each of the filtered N-ECG signal in the filtered N-ECG signals data; subtracting, from each of the filtered N-ECG signal of the filtered N-ECG signals data, the maternal ECG signal, by utilizing at least one non-linear subtraction procedure to obtain corrected ECG signals data which comprise data representative of a N number of corrected ECG signals (corrected N-ECG signals data), wherein the at least one non-linear subtraction procedure comprises: iteratively performing: i) dividing each filtered N-ECG signal of N-ECG signals of the filtered N-ECG signals data into a second plurality of ECG signal segments, 1) wherein each ECG signal segment of the plurality of ECG signal segments corresponds to a beat interval of a full heartbeat, and 2) wherein each beat interval is automatically determined based, at least in part on automatically detecting an onset value and an offset value of such beat interval; ii) modifying each of the plurality of filtered N-ECG signal segments to form a plurality of modified filtered N-ECG signal segments, wherein the modifying is performed using at least one inverse optimization scheme based on a set of parameters, wherein values of the set of parameters is determined based on: iteratively performing: 1) defining a global template based on a standard heartbeat profile of an adult human being; 2) setting a set of tentative values for a local template for each filtered N-ECG signal segment; and 3) utilizing at least one optimization scheme to determine an adaptive template for each filtered N-ECG signal segment based on the local template being matched to the global template within a pre-determined similarity value; and iii) eliminating the modified segments from each of the filtered N-ECG signals, by subtracting the adaptive template from the filtered N-ECG signal thereby generating each corrected ECG signal; extracting raw fetal ECG signals data from the filtered N-ECG signals data based on the corrected ECG signals data, wherein the raw fetal ECG signals data comprises a N number of fetal ECG signals (raw N-ECG fetal signals data); processing the raw N-ECG fetal signals data to improve a signal-to-noise ratio of the N-ECG fetal signals to form filtered N-ECG fetal signals data; detecting fetal heart peaks in the filtered N-ECG fetal signals data; calculating, based on detected fetal heart peaks, at least one of: i) fetal heart rate, ii) fetal heart curve, iii) beat-2-beat fetal heart rate, or iv) fetal heart rate variability; and outputting a result of the calculating operation; e. a specifically programmed computer system comprising: at least one specialized computer machine, comprising: a non-transient memory, electronically storing particular computer executable program code; and at least one computer processor which, when executing the particular program code, becomes a specifically programmed computing processor that is configured to at least perform the following operations: receiving, by at least one computer processor executing specific programmable instructions configured for the method, a plurality of Phonocardiogram (PCG) signals data inputs from a plurality of acoustic sensors; digital signal filtering, by the at least one computer processor, utilizing a plurality of bandpass filters, the plurality of PCG signals data inputs to form a plurality of filtered PCG outputs, wherein the plurality of bandpass filters comprises a L number of bandpass filters, wherein each bandpass filter outputs a K number of filtered PCG outputs; wavelet denoising, by the at least one computer processor, a first subset of filtered PCG outputs of the plurality of filtered PCG outputs to form a M number of denoised filtered PCG outputs, wherein M is equal to L multiply by K; transforming, by the at least one computer processor, utilizing an Independent-Component-Analysis (ICA), a second subset of filtered PCG outputs of the plurality of filtered PCG outputs to form the M number of filtered ICA transforms; transforming, by the at least one computer processor, utilizing the Independent-Component-Analysis (ICA), a first portion of the second subset of denoised filtered PCG outputs to form the M number of denoised filtered ICA transforms; compiling, by the at least one computer processor, a S number of a plurality of detection heartbeat (DH) inputs, comprising: i) the M number of filtered PCG outputs, ii) the M number of the denoised filtered PCG outputs, iii) the M number of the filtered ICA transforms, and iv) the M number of the denoised filtered ICA transforms; detecting, by the at least one computer processor, beat locations of beats in each of DH inputs; calculating, by the at least one computer processor, a confidence score that describes a probability that the beats in each DH input of the plurality of DH inputs represent actual heartbeats and not a noise; dividing, by the at least one computer processor, the plurality of DH inputs into at least two groups: i) a first group of DH inputs containing fetal heartbeats, ii) a second group of DH inputs containing maternal heartbeats; selecting, by the at least one computer processor, from the first group of DH inputs, at least one particular fetal DH input that contains the fetal heartbeat based on a first confidence score of the at least one particular fetal DH input; and selecting, by the at least one computer processor, from the second group of DH inputs, at least one particular maternal DH input that contains the maternal heartbeat, based on a second confidence score of the at least one particular maternal DH input; and f. a specifically programmed computer system comprising: at least one specialized computer machine, comprising: a non-transient memory, electronically storing particular computer executable program code; and at least one computer processor which, when executing the particular program code, becomes a specifically programmed computing processor that is configured to at least perform the following operations: