This study presents a novel two-stage framework to enhance the reliability of resting electrocardiogram (ECG) signals by addressing motion artifacts that often compromise diagnostic accuracy. In the first stage, motion artifacts are mitigated using stationary wavelet transform coupled with Savitzky-Golay filtering, effectively preserving critical ECG morphological features such as the QRS complex. The second stage employs a deep convolutional neural network to classify ECG signals as either usable or artifact-corrupted, achieving a classification accuracy of 98.76%. Utilizing a 12-lead ECG dataset from PhysioNet, the proposed unified CNN model outperforms individual lead-specific models, offering superior computational efficiency (1.6 seconds vs. 21.7 seconds for predictions) and reduced storage requirements (1 GB vs. 15 GB). The approach demonstrates high sensitivity (98.74%) and specificity (98.77%), ensuring robust detection of noisy signals. By integrating advanced preprocessing with deep learning, this framework enhances ECG signal clarity, reducing the risk of misdiagnosis in clinical settings. Future work will focus on real-time integration into ECG devices, expanding datasets to include diverse cardiac pathologies, and incorporating multimodal signals to further improve artifact detection, paving the way for automated, reliable ECG diagnostics.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

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The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

MIT-BIH Noise Stress Test Database (https://physionet.org/content/nstdb/1.0.0/)

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