# Convolutional Fourier Analysis Network (CFAN): A Unified Time-Frequency Approach for ECG Classification

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.00497 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.00497/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 3 of its 43 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Feb 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [EfficientNet: Rethinking Model Scaling for Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.11946/) (2019)
- [FAN: Fourier Analysis Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.02675/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Machine learning has revolutionized biomedical signal analysis, particularly in electrocardiogram (ECG) classification. While convolutional neural networks (CNNs) excel at automatic feature extraction, the optimal integration of time- and frequency-domain information remains unresolved. This study introduces the Convolutional Fourier Analysis Network (CFAN), a novel architecture that unifies time-frequency analysis by embedding Fourier principles directly into CNN layers. We evaluate CFAN against four benchmarks - spectrogram-based 2D CNN (SPECT); 1D CNN (CNN1D); Fourier-based 1D CNN (FFT1D); and CNN1D with integrated Fourier Analysis Network (CNN1D-FAN) - across three ECG tasks: arrhythmia classification (MIT-BIH), identity recognition (ECG-ID), and apnea detection (Apnea-ECG). CFAN achieved state-of-the-art performance, surpassing all competing methods with accuracies of 98.95% (MIT-BIH), 96.83% (ECG-ID), and 95.01% (Apnea-ECG). Notably, on ECG-ID and Apnea-ECG, CFAN demonstrated statistically significant improvements over the second-best method (CNN1D-FAN, p ≤ 0.02), further validating its superior performance. Key innovations include CONV-FAN blocks that combine sine, cosine and GELU activations in convolutional layers to capture periodic features and joint time-frequency learning without spectrogram conversion. Our results highlight CFAN's potential for broader biomedical and signal classification applications.