Animal instrumentation

• US 20060000420A1
• Filed: 05/24/2005
• Published: 01/05/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/24/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Equusys Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Equusys Incorporated
• Inventors: Martin Davies, Michael Allan
• Granted Patent: US 7,467,603 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 119/174
• CPC Class Codes: A01K 11/008 incorporating GPS
• CPC Class Codes: A01K 15/027 Exercising equipment, e.g. tread mills, carousels equipment for racing or riding sports events A63K
• CPC Class Codes: A01K 29/005 Monitoring or measuring activity, e.g. detecting heat or mating
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2503/40 Animals
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2560/0242 adapted to measure environmental factors, e.g. temperature, pollution
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2562/0219 Inertial sensors, e.g. accelerometers, gyroscopes, tilt switches
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0022 Monitoring a patient using a global network, e.g. telephone networks, internet
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0024 for multiple sensor units attached to the patient, e.g. using a body or personal area network
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1038 Measuring plantar pressure during gait
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/112 Gait analysis
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7264 Classification of physiological signals or data, e.g. using neural networks, statistical classifiers, expert systems or fuzzy systems neural networks per se G06N3/00; expert systems per se G06N5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks

Abstract

An approach to monitoring, evaluation, diagnosis, treatment or conditioning of animals such as horses does not require use of restrictive equipment such as treadmills or force plates and that can provide either or both of more or less immediate or continuous processing of data to perform the monitoring or diagnosis. One or more wireless sensors are attached to the animal, for example, to measure motion-related parameter associated with one or more parts of the animal. Sensor data is received from the sensors and processed to identify a characteristic of the motion of the animal, such as a quality of gait. The sensor data can also be used to avoid injury to the animal and/or the rider, and to verify the identity of an animal.

Claims

1. A method for monitoring a characteristic of motion of an animal comprising:

attaching one or more sensors to the animal, said one or more sensors including a sensor for measuring a motion-related parameter associated with a limb of the animal;

receiving sensor data from the one or more sensors;

processing the received sensor data, including identifying a characteristic of the motion of the animal based on said data.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein fixing the one or more sensors to the animal includes fixing multiple sensors to the animal, each sensor providing at least some of the sensor data.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein said one or more sensors including multiple sensors each for measuring a motion-related parameter associated with a different part of the animal.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising collecting the sensor data during a normal activity of the animal.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein collecting the sensor data is collected during normal activity of the animal includes collecting said data during an athletic event.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein the processing of the received sensor data is performed during the normal activity.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein processing the received sensor data includes processing said data in a real time mode.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein processing the received sensor data includes processing said data in a batch mode.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein identifying the characteristic of the motion includes identifying a quality of gait of the animal.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the quality of the gait includes a physical parameter of the gait.

11. The method of claim 9 wherein the quality of gait includes a lameness exhibited in the gait of the animal.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein processing the received sensor data further comprises identifying an injury condition based on the received signals.

13. The method of claim 12 the injury condition includes at least one of an actual injury and a predisposition to an injury.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein one or more sensors include a sensor from the group consisting of:

an inertial position, motion or acceleration sensor;

a strain, force or pressure sensor;

a muscle, nerve or connective tissue activity sensor;

a respiratory sensor;

a cardiac sensor;

a blood oxygen sensor;

a temperature sensor; and

an audio or video sensor.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein attaching the one or more sensors to the animal comprises removably attaching said sensors.

16. The method of claim 1 further receiving the sensor data includes passing said data over a wireless network local to the animal.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein receiving the sensor data further includes passing said data over a wireless link to a station remote from the animal.

18. A method for avoiding injury to an animal comprising:

providing a sensor system for monitoring physical and/or physiological parameters associated with the animal;

receiving signals from the sensor system; and

processing the received signals, including identifying an injury condition based on the received signals.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the animal is a horse and the method is for avoiding injury to either or both of the horse or a rider of the horse during an equestrian event.

20. The method of claim 18 wherein the injury condition includes at least one of an actual injury and a predisposition to an injury.

21. A method comprising:

recording physical and/or physiological signals associated with motion of a horse; and

storing secure data determined from the recorded signals, including storing authentication data for validating the stored data.

22. The method of claim 21 wherein the authentication data validates at least one of an identity of the horse and a time and a place of recording of the signals.

23. The method of claim 21 further comprising:

verifying the identity of a horse by recording additional physical and/or physiological signals from the horse and comparing said additional data and the stored secure data.

24. A method for determining potential performance of an animal comprising:

acquiring objective measurements from the animal, including acquiring sensor measurements from the animal;

comparing the objective measurements with criteria derived from measurements acquired from other animals; and

predicting potential performance based on a result of the comparison.

25. The method of claim 24 acquiring the measurements from the other animals, and storing performance attributes of the other animals.

26. The method of claim 25 wherein acquiring the measurements from the other animals includes acquiring measurements from the other animals a stage of development corresponding to that of the animal for which potential performance is to be determined, and storing the performance attributes of the other animals includes storing attributes of the other animals corresponding to a later stage of development.

27. A system for monitoring an animal comprising:

a sensor subsystem fixed to the animal, including at least one sensor for measuring a physical parameter associated with at least one limb or the animal;

a computing subsystem for real-time processing of data provided by the sensor subsystem; and

a communication subsystem coupling the sensor subsystem and the computing subsystem for passing sensor data from the sensor subsystem to the processing subsystem.

28. A system for monitoring an animal comprising:

a communication hub for attaching to an animal, said communication hub including a receiver for accepting sensor data from sensors attached to the animal and a transmitter for providing data based on the accepted sensor data; and

a plurality of sensors, each including a transmitter for providing sensor data to the hub;

wherein the communication hub is configurable for receiving sensor data from a selection of the plurality of sensors attached to the animal.

29. The system of claim 28 further comprising a remote station for receiving the data provided by the hub.

30. The system of claim 29 wherein the remote station includes a receiver for accepting wireless communication from the hub.

31. The system of claim 29 wherein the remote station includes a processor for processing the received data from the hub.

32. The system of claim 28 wherein the receiver of the hub and the transmitter of at least some of the plurality of sensors enable wireless communication between the sensors and the hub.

33. The system of claim 32 wherein the wireless communication includes radio-frequency communication.

34. The system of claim 28 wherein the hub is automatically configurable according to a selection of the plurality of sensors.