COMPARISON OF DETECTION METHODS :APPLICATION TO KCOMPLEX DETECTION IN SLEEP EEG

Didier Henry, Dominique Sauter, Member, IEEE, Olivier Caspary

Centre de Recherche en Automatique de Nancy (CNRS UA 821) - Universite de Nancy I, BP 239
54506 VANDOEUVRE CEDEX (FRANCE)

Abstract Detection of a particular event with a

known pattern in a noisy signal is the subject of this
paper. The purpose is to compare three events
detection methods based on matched filtering,
decomposition in a set of orthonormal functions and
wavelets analysis. The application which is considered
here concerns K-complex detection in sleep EEG
signals.
I. INTRODUCTION
The electrical activity of the human brain has been
studied extensively since the discovery of the EEG by
BERGER in 1924 [l]. In EEG analysis, K-complexes and
spindles take a prominent part in sleep research and justify
the development of detection methods for automatic
recognition. Since a method for K-complex detection using
fuzzy logic has been described previously [2], this paper
focuses on K-complexes recognition in sleep EEG using
methods based on a decompositionof the signal.

set of functions {$i(t), i = l , 2, ...} is obtained by the

Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization procedure [31. Then
coefficient ci (t) are comnuted with :

11. METHODS
The general idea is to make the projection of the signal
x(t) on one or several elementary functions vi(t) which
depend on one or several parameters. In this way we obtain
a set of coefficients ci(t) which are then compared to
reference parameters relative to the expected events.
Decompositionof the signal is obtained using :

Y2i(t)=-'Y(-)
2'
2'

x(t) = C(ci(t)xvi(t))

(synthesis)

i=O

where coefficients are computed in this manner:

Wavelets Decomposition
Wavelets analysis is obtain in this way :
t

ci(t)= x*y~2i(t)=jx(T).v2i(t-T).dT
0

where v2i(t) is the dilation by a factor 2' of a basic

wavelet Y(t) proposed by Sdphane Mallat 141, VI.
1

111. SIMULATIONS
The previous methods have been applied to a set of test
signals composed of a number n of events corrupted by an
additive gausian noise. To compare the results given by
these methods we consider the following criteria : miss
detection, false alarm rate and robustness to model
deviations. The elementary event is constructed according
to a model of K complexesproposed by Bremer [6] :
12

ci (t) = x(t). vi (t) .dt

0

Note : if the functions y~i(t)are orthogonal, then the

coefficients ci( t) are independent.

Three decompositionmethods are considered in this paper:

,I

Matched Filter

1--

tl

Fig. 1. Elementary event

Parameters ai, bi, ri, Ti, i = l..nof the event Ei, i = l..n
are obtained according to :

C;(t) = x*pi(Ti - t) = ~ x ( T pi
) . (T + t - Ti) .dT
where * denotes the convolution product and Ti is the
duration of the event pi (t) to be detected.

a, =(aref --)+6.rvli
2
~

Decomposition in a set of orthonomalfunctions

Let x(t) be a deterministic signal with finite energy, and

observed over the interval t E [ti, tf then an orthonormal

1,

0-7803-2050-6/94 $4.00 0 1994 IEEE

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ri = (rref - -)
2

; b, =(b,f --)+6.rv2;

+ 6 . rv3, ; Ti = (Tref- -) + 6 . rv4,

2

where rvl, rv2, rv3, rv4 are independent random

variables with uniform distribution included between 0 and
1 ; 6 is a coefficient of deformation ; cr is the standard
variation of the additive noise.

50

I
:Wavelets

;
20
8 lo
2

.-

Figures 2 and 3 show two examples of test signals.

__-

0.1

---0.2

- _ _ _ _ a

0.3

0.4

*_-- -

-.--

0.6

0.7

e-*

0.5

0.8

0.9

Amplitude of the deformation

1 . 5 1 .

-1.5'
0

:-:

TN?al:

200

400

600

800

1000 1200 1400

Number of points

Fig. 6. Miss detection versus deformation ;n = 5 W ; o=O

:
I

*++*++
+++++----f+++*+++-+-+-+~=~~~~~~~~-++

1600 1800 2000

Fig. 2. Test signal ;n=10 ; 6=0.5 ; o=O

41

25
.,

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

Amplitude of the deformation

.I

Fig. 7. False alarm versus deformation ;n=5000 ; 04

UM

400

600

8M)

1'333

12M

1400

IMI

1830 2wO

In the presence of noise, Matched filter and Wavelets

analysis give the same rate of miss detection (see fig. 4),
but Wavelets produce less false alarms (fig. 5). When
events are deformed, results are very close, exept for
orthonormal functions (fig. 6 and 7).

Nutnbero f points

Fig. 3. Test signal ;n=10 ; 6 4 . 5 ; o = l

IV. RESULTS
The results given by the methods applied to simulation
signals are presented on the following figures :
+t: Matched Filter

r* I C
I

*--

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

Standard variation of addited noise

Fig. 4. Miss detection versus noise ;n=500 ; 6=0

- - : Orthonormal Functions
:Wavelets

0.5

* -

1.0
15
2.0
Standard variation of addited noise

2.5

Fig. 5. False alarm versus noise ;n=500 ; 6=0

3.0

V. CONCLUSION
The proposed methods are very efficient for the
detection of events buried in noise, even when the SNR
(Signal to Noise Ratio) is very small. But when the events
are deformed, very few false alarms are encountered. In
detection problems, robustness to model deviations is
generally an advantage, but for an application like Kcomplex detection in sleep EEG signals, these methods are
unable to distinguish events which the patterns are very
close. For this reason these methods are unsuited in Slow
Wave Sleep (S.W.S.) where appear delta waves but are
very efficient in sleep stages 1 or 2.
REFERENCES
[ 13 H. BERGER, "Uber Elektroenkephalogram des
menschen," Arch. Psychiat. Neverkunden, vol. 87, pp.
527-570,1929.
121 D. SAUTER, "Recognition of K-complex in sleep
EEG using a fuzzy c-means algorithm", 15th Ann. Int.
Conf. IEEE Eng. Med. & Biol. Soc., San Diego, 1993.
[3] M. BARKAT, Signal Detection and Estimation. Artech
House, New York, 1991.
[4] S. MALLAT, "Singularity Detection and Processing
with Wavelets," IEEE Trans. Information Theory, vol. 38,
p ~617-643,1992.
.
[5] S. MALLAT, "Characterization of Signals from
Multiscale Edges," IEEE Trans. on Pattern Analysis and
Machine Int., vol. 14, pp. 710-732, 1992.
161 G. BREMER, "Automatic detection of the K-complex
in sleep EEG," IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng., vol. 17, pp.
314-323,1970.

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