An application of the Lp-norm in robust weighted averaging of biomedical signals

Averaging is one of the basic methods of statistical analysis of experimental data where the response of the system is periodic or quasi-periodic. As long as the noise are Gaussian, the standard averaging leads to good results and effective noise reduction. However, when the distortions have impulsive nature, then such an approach leads to a deterioration of the system. In this case the robust methods should be applied which are characterized by resistance to a statistical sample spoken. In this work a robust averaging method based on the minimization of a scalar criterion function using a Lp-norm functions are presented. The effectiveness of the proposed method was tested in an averaging periods aligned ECG signal cycles in the presence of impulse noise.