NURSING SYSTEM

• US 20090198374A1
• Filed: 04/04/2008
• Published: 08/06/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: National Chiao Tung University (Government of The Republic of China)
• Original Assignee: National Chiao TUNG University of Taiwan
• Inventors: Lin, Chen-Yang, Huang, Fu-Sheng, Tsai, Chi-Yi, Lin, Zhi-Sheng, Chen, Chun-Wei, Song, Kai-Tai
• Granted Patent: US 8,214,082 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/245
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1115 Monitoring leaving of a patient support, e.g. a bed or a wheelchair
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 30/20 for handling medical images, e.g. DICOM, HL7 or PACS
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/63 for local operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems

Abstract

A nursing system of the present invention can position where a person to be nursed through a sensor network widely deployed in an environment, instantaneously detect if the person to be nursed has an accident, and forward a message to inform a relative or medical staff. An autonomous robot will actively move beside the person to be nursed and transmit real-time images to a remote computer or PDA so that the relative or medical staff can swiftly ascertain the situation of the person to be nursed and the person to be nursed in case of emergency can be rescued as soon as possible.

Claims

1. A nursing system, comprising:

a nursing apparatus comprising an on-board computer for controlling the nursing system;

a head motion mechanism controlled by the computer;

a camera disposed on and driven by the head motion mechanism to rotate in multi-angle directions for capturing and forwarding images to the computer;

a moving platform controlled by the computer to move the nursing apparatus;

a Zigbee module for receiving signals from a wireless sensor network and transmitting the signals to the computer;

a laser scanner for detecting if there is any blockade around the nursing apparatus and transmitting data to the computer; and

an I/O device connected with the computer for a user to communicate with the nursing apparatus;

a body pose recognition module attached to a person to be nursed for detecting a body pose of the person by a triaxial accelerometer so as to determine if there is an emergency and generate a determination result signal; and

the wireless sensor network disposed as a positioning system for determining a position of the person to be nursed, receiving the determination result signal from the body pose recognition module and transferring the determination result signal to the nursing apparatus, via the Zigbee module.

2. The nursing system of claim 1, further comprising a remote receiver for receiving signals issued by the nursing apparatus, via an external network.

3. The nursing system of claim 2, wherein the external network is a WiFi/3G network system.

4. The nursing system of claim 2, wherein the remote receiver comprises one selected from a group consisting of a mobile phone, a personal computer, a PDA and a smart phone.

5. The nursing system of claim 1, wherein the on-board computer comprises:

a human face tracing and detecting function using the camera to capture the image and detect a position of a face of the person to be nursed in the image and controlling the head motion mechanism to stably move the camera so as to keep track of the face of the person to be nursed; and

a navigation behavior control function for controlling the moving platform to make the nursing apparatus perform a plurality of specific moving behaviors.

6. The nursing system of claim 5, wherein the specific moving behaviors at least comprise:

a blockade-dodging behavior making the nursing apparatus dodge a blockade ahead;

a target-tracing behavior adjusting a forward-moving direction of the nursing apparatus so that the nursing apparatus moves toward the person to be nursed; and

a boundary-moving behavior making the nursing apparatus move forward along a boundary of an environment by keeping a fixed distance away from a closer side of the boundary.

7. The nursing system of claim 1, wherein the body pose recognition module is mounted to a waist portion of the person to be nursed and utilizes a dynamic acceleration value at the waist portion to represent a state of a center of gravity of the person to be nursed.

8. The nursing system of claim 7, wherein the body pose recognition module measures the dynamic acceleration value of the person to be nursed and acquires the dynamic acceleration value with a triaxial accelerometer to determine a body pose of the person to be nursed.

9. The nursing system of claim 8, wherein an X-axis, a Y-axis and a Z-axis are defined in a right direction, a top direction and a rear direction of a body of the person to be nursed respectively.

10. The nursing system of claim 2, wherein the nursing apparatus further comprises an emergency message transmission function to transmit an emergency message to the remote receiver equipped on a medical staff or a family member, via the external network.

11. The nursing system of claim 1, wherein the camera further comprises:

an image compression function for processing received images; and

a video transmission function for transmitting the received images from the on-board computer to the remote receiver through the external network.

12. The nursing system of claim 1, wherein the person to be nursed is one selected from a group consisting of an aged person, a child or a patient.

13. The nursing system of claim 10, wherein the nursing person is one of a relative or a medical staff.

14. A nursing system, comprising:

a nursing apparatus comprising a camera disposed on a head motion mechanism to rotate in multi-angle directions for capturing and forwarding image;

a Zigbee module;

a laser scanner disposed to detect if there is any blockade around the nursing apparatus; and

a body pose recognition module attached to a person to be nursed for detecting a body pose of the person so as to determine if there is an emergency, and for communicating with the Zigbee module of the nursing apparatus, via a wireless sensor network.

15. The nursing system of claim 14, further comprising a remote receiver for receiving signals issued by the nursing apparatus, via an external network.

16. The nursing system of claim 15, wherein the remote receiver comprises one selected from a group consisting of a mobile phone, a personal computer, a PDA and a smart phone, and wherein the external network is a WiFi/3G network system.

17. The nursing system of claim 15, wherein the nursing apparatus further comprises an on-board computer installed to capture the image and detect a position of a face of the person to be nursed in the image, and to control the head motion mechanism to move the camera so as to keep track of the face of the person to be nursed.

18. The nursing system of claim 15, wherein the body pose recognition module is mounted to a waist portion of the person to be nursed and utilizes a dynamic acceleration value at the waist portion to represent a state of a center of gravity of the person to be nursed.

19. The nursing system of claim 15, wherein the body pose recognition module measures the dynamic acceleration value of the person to be nursed and acquires the dynamic acceleration value with a triaxial accelerometer to determine a body pose of the person to be nursed.

20. The nursing system of claim 17, wherein the on-board computer installed in the nursing apparatus is further configured to transmit an emergency message to the remote receiver equipped on a medical staff or a family member, via an external network.