Abstract
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) poses a significant challenge to global health, with cardiac arrhythmia representing one of its most prevalent manifestations. The timely and precise classification of arrhythmias is critical for the effective management of CVD. This study introduces an innovative approach to enhancing arrhythmia classification accuracy through advanced Electrocardiogram (ECG) signal processing. We propose a dual-channel feature fusion strategy designed to enhance the precision and objectivity of ECG analysis. Initially, we apply an Improved Complete Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition with Adaptive Noise (ICEEMDAN) and enhanced wavelet thresholding for robust noise reduction. Subsequently, in the primary channel, region of interest features are emphasized using a ResNet-ICBAM network model for feature extraction. In parallel, the secondary channel transforms 1D ECG signals into Gram angular difference field (GADF), Markov transition field (MTF), and recurrence plot (RP) representations, which are then subjected to two-dimensional convolutional neural network (2D-CNN) feature extraction. Post-extraction, the features from both channels are fused and classified. When evaluated on the MIT-BIH database, our method achieves a classification accuracy of 97.80%. Compared to other methods, our approach of two-channel feature fusion has a significant improvement in overall performance by adding a 2D convolutional network. This methodology represents a substantial advancement in ECG signal processing, offering significant potential for clinical applications and improving patient care efficiency and accuracy.