Drug Dispensing Device
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A dispensing device for dispensing liquids, particularly liquid medications to people, contains a container which is filled with a liquid and which has an opening at one end for dispensing same. The dispensing device further has at least one pair of capacitive measuring electrodes which are arranged in an outer region of the container, particularly on the wall, opposite one another, for determining the permittivity of the respective medium in the intermediate region between the measuring electrodes. A shield is arranged around the container and surrounds the measurement electrodes in a sheath-like manner.
30 Citations
40 Claims
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1-20. -20. (canceled)
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21. A device for dispensing liquids to persons, the device comprising:
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a container filled with a liquid having an opening formed therein on one end to dispense the liquid; at least one pair of capacitive measurement electrodes disposed on an outer side of said container opposite one another, to determine a permittivity of a respective medium in a space between said capacitive measurement electrodes; and a cover surrounding said capacitive measurement electrodes and disposed around said container, said cover having a film coated with conductors in a form of tracks wrapped or disposed around said container, said conductors including first, second and third separate conductors formed on said film, said first and second conductors formed as mutually engaging comb conductors, said third conductor being meander-shaped and disposed between said two comb conductors; an area between the liquid and said capacitive measurement electrodes is free of said cover; and said cover is spaced apart from said capacitive measurement electrodes. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 26, 27, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36)
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22. (canceled)
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25. (canceled)
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28. (canceled)
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29. A device for dispensing liquids to persons, the device comprising:
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a container filled with a liquid having an opening formed therein on one end to dispense the liquid; at least one pair of capacitive measurement electrodes disposed on an outer side of said container opposite one another, to determine a permittivity of a respective medium in a space between said capacitive measurement electrodes; a cover surrounding said capacitive measurement electrodes and disposed around said container, said cover having a first comb conductor and a meander-shaped conductor; a contact sensor disposed outside or in an area of said cover, said contact sensor having said first comb conductor and said meander-shaped conductor of said cover as sensor electrodes; a processing unit; a capacitance measuring device; and said sensor electrodes of said contact sensor are connected to said capacitance measurement device, and an additional capacitance value determined by said capacitance measurement device is provided to said processing unit, and said processing unit suppresses a forwarding of a fill level determined by said processing unit or marks the fill level invalid if an additional capacitance reading exceeds a specified threshold value.
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37. A method for determining and validating a fill level in a container disposed in a dispensing device, which comprises the steps of:
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providing at least one pair of measurement electrodes disposed opposite one another on an outside of the container for measuring a capacitance; determining the capacitance between the two measurement electrodes; determining a fill level reading based on the capacitance determined according to a specified calibration function; determining a further capacitance with conductors on the outside of the measurement electrodes in an area of a cover; and comparing the further capacitance with a threshold value, and the fill level is only considered valid if the further capacitance is below the threshold value. - View Dependent Claims (38, 39, 40)
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Specification