A new BAT optimization algorithm based feature selection method for electrocardiogram heartbeat classification using empirical wavelet transform and Fisher ratio

In this paper, a novel feature selection method is proposed for the categorization of electrocardiogram (ECG) heartbeats. The proposed technique uses the Fisher ratio and BAT optimization algorithm to obtain the best feature set for ECG classification. The MIT-BIH arrhythmia database contains sixteen classes of the ECG heartbeats. The MIT-BIH ECG arrhythmia database divided into intra-patient and inter-patient schemes to be used in this study. The proposed feature selection methodology works in following steps: firstly, features are extracted using empirical wavelet transform (EWT) and then higher-order statistics, as well as symbolic features, are computed for each decomposed mode of EWT. Thereafter, the complete feature vector is obtained by the conjunction of EWT based features and RR interval features. Secondly, for feature selection, the Fisher ratio is utilized. It is optimized by using BAT algorithm so as to have maximal discrimination of the between classes. Finally, in the classification step, the k-nearest neighbor classifier is used to classify the heartbeats. The performance measures i.e., accuracy, sensitivity, positive predictivity, specificity for intra-patient scheme are 99.80%, 99.80%, 99.80%, 99.987% and for inter-patient scheme are 97.59%, 97.589%, 97.589%, 99.196% respectively. The proposed feature selection technique outperforms the other state of art feature selection methods.