# TF-TransUNet1D: Time-Frequency Guided Transformer U-Net for Robust ECG Denoising in Digital Twin

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.20398 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.20398/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 5 of its 18 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 28 Aug 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [DeScoD-ECG: Deep Score-Based Diffusion Model for ECG Baseline Wander and Noise Removal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.00542/) (2022)
- [Towards Enabling Cardiac Digital Twins of Myocardial Infarction Using Deep Computational Models for Inverse Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.04421/) (2023)
- [Deep Recurrent Neural Networks for ECG Signal Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.11551/) (2018)
- [ECG Signal Denoising Using Multi-scale Patch Embedding and Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.11065/) (2024)
- [Personalized Topology-Informed Localization of Standard 12-Lead ECG Electrode Placement from Incomplete Cardiac MRIs for Efficient Cardiac Digital Twins](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.13945/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Electrocardiogram (ECG) signals serve as a foundational data source for cardiac digital twins, yet their diagnostic utility is frequently compromised by noise and artifacts. To address this issue, we propose TF-TransUNet1D, a novel one-dimensional deep neural network that integrates a U-Net-based encoder-decoder architecture with a Transformer encoder, guided by a hybrid time-frequency domain loss. The model is designed to simultaneously capture local morphological features and long-range temporal dependencies, which are critical for preserving the diagnostic integrity of ECG signals. To enhance denoising robustness, we introduce a dual-domain loss function that jointly optimizes waveform reconstruction in the time domain and spectral fidelity in the frequency domain. In particular, the frequency-domain component effectively suppresses high-frequency noise while maintaining the spectral structure of the signal, enabling recovery of subtle but clinically significant waveform components. We evaluate TF-TransUNet1D using synthetically corrupted signals from the MIT-BIH Arrhythmia Database and the Noise Stress Test Database (NSTDB). Comparative experiments against state-of-the-art baselines demonstrate consistent superiority of our model in terms of SNR improvement and error metrics, achieving a mean absolute error of 0.1285 and Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.9540. By delivering high-precision denoising, this work bridges a critical gap in pre-processing pipelines for cardiac digital twins, enabling more reliable real-time monitoring and personalized modeling.