Le photopléthysmogramme (PPG) est un signal optique acquis à partir de l’oxymètre de pouls, dont l’usage principal consiste à mesurer la saturation en oxygène. Avec le développement des technologies portables, il est devenu la technique de base pour la surveillance de l’activité cardio-respiratoire des patients et la détection des anomalies. En dépit de sa simplicité d'utilisation, le déploiement de cette technique reste encore limité pour deux principales raisons : 1. L’extrême sensibilité du signal aux distorsions. 2. La non-reproductibilité entre les sujets et pour les mêmes sujets, en raison de l'âge et des conditions de santé. L’objectif de cette thèse est le développement de méthodes robustes et universelles afin d’avoir une estimation précise de la fréquence respiratoire (FR) indépendamment de la variabilité intra et interindividuelle du PPG. Plusieurs contributions originales en traitement statistiques du signal PPG sont proposées. En premier lieu, une méthode adaptative de détection des artefacts basée sur la comparaison de modèle a été développée. Des tests par la technique Random Distortion Testing sont introduits pour détecter les pulses de PPG avec des artefacts. En deuxième lieu, une analyse de plusieurs méthodes spectrales d’estimation de la FR est proposée. Afin de mettre en évidence la robustesse des méthodes proposées face à la variabilité du signal, plusieurs tests ont été effectués sur deux bases de données avec de différentes tranches d'âge et des différents modes respiratoires. En troisième lieu, un indice de qualité respiratoire spectral (SRQI) est conçu dans le but de communiquer au clinicien que les valeurs fiables de la FR avec un certain degré de confiance. / One promising area of research in clinical routine involves using photoplethysmography (PPG) for monitoring respiratory activities. PPG is an optical signal acquired from oximeters, whose principal use consists in measuring oxygen saturation. Despite its simplicity of use, the deployment of this technique is still limited because of the signal sensitivity to distortions and the non-reproducibility between subjects, but also for the same subject, due to age and health conditions. The main aim of this work is to develop robust and universal methods for estimating accurate respiratory rate regardless of the intra- and inter-individual variability that affects PPG features. For this purpose, firstly, an adaptive artefact detection method based on template matching and decision by Random Distortion Testing is introduced for detecting PPG pulses with artefacts. Secondly, an analysis of several spectral methods for Respiratory Rate (RR) estimation on two different databases, with different age ranges and different respiratory modes, is proposed. Thirdly, a Spectral Respiratory Quality Index (SRQI) is attributed to respiratory rate estimates, in order that the clinician may select only RR values with a large confidence scale. Promising results are found for two different databases.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / The present work proposes an algorithm to detect and identify the artifact signals produced by the concrete gestural actions of jaw clench and eyebrows raising in the electroencephalography (EEG) signal. Artifacts are signals that manifest in the EEG signal but do not come from the brain but from other sources such as flickering, electrical noise, muscle movements, breathing, and heartbeat. The proposed algorithm makes use of concepts and knowledge in the field of signal processing, such as signal energy, zero crossings, and block processing, to correctly classify the aforementioned artifact signals. The algorithm showed a 90% detection accuracy when evaluated in independent ten-second registers in which the gestural events of interest were induced, then the samples were processed, and the detection was performed. The detection and identification of these devices can be used as commands in a brain–computer interface (BCI) of various applications, such as games, control systems of some type of hardware of special benefit for disabled people, such as a chair wheel, a robot or mechanical arm, a computer pointer control interface, an Internet of things (IoT) control or some communication system. / Revisión por pares

This thesis aims at an automatic detection of artifacts in optical satellite images such as aliasing, A/D conversion problems, striping, and compression noise; in fact, all blemishes that are unusual in an undistorted image. Artifact detection in Earth observation images becomes increasingly difficult when the resolution of the image improves. For images of low, medium or high resolution, the artifact signatures are sufficiently different from the useful signal, thus allowing their characterization as distortions; however, when the resolution improves, the artifacts have, in terms of signal theory, a similar signature to the interesting objects in an image. Although it is more difficult to detect artifacts in very high resolution images, we need analysis tools that work properly, without impeding the extraction of objects in an image. Furthermore, the detection should be as automatic as possible, given the quantity and ever-increasing volumes of images that make any manual detection illusory. Finally, experience shows that artifacts are not all predictable nor can they be modeled as expected. Thus, any artifact detection shall be as generic as possible, without requiring the modeling of their origin or their impact on an image. Outside the field of Earth observation, similar detection problems have arisen in multimedia image processing. This includes the evaluation of image quality, compression, watermarking, detecting attacks, image tampering, the montage of photographs, steganalysis, etc. In general, the techniques used to address these problems are based on direct or indirect measurement of intrinsic information and mutual information. Therefore, this thesis has the objective to translate these approaches to artifact detection in Earth observation images, based particularly on the theories of Shannon and Kolmogorov, including approaches for measuring rate-distortion and pattern-recognition based compression. The results from these theories are then used to detect too low or too high complexities, or redundant patterns. The test images being used are from the satellite instruments SPOT, MERIS, etc. We propose several methods for artifact detection. The first method is using the Rate-Distortion (RD) function obtained by compressing an image with different compression factors and examines how an artifact can result in a high degree of regularity or irregularity affecting the attainable compression rate. The second method is using the Normalized Compression Distance (NCD) and examines whether artifacts have similar patterns. The third method is using different approaches for RD such as the Kolmogorov Structure Function and the Complexity-to-Error Migration (CEM) for examining how artifacts can be observed in compression-decompression error maps. Finally, we compare our proposed methods with an existing method based on image quality metrics. The results show that the artifact detection depends on the artifact intensity and the type of surface cover contained in the satellite image.