CHARACTERIZING PRIMATE NAIL DEFORMATION

• US 20180085061A1
• Filed: 01/20/2017
• Published: 03/29/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 09/28/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: HEISIG, Stephen J., SAKUMA, Katsuyuki
• Granted Patent: US 10,786,202 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2503/40 Animals
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2562/0261 Strain gauges
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1077 Measuring of profiles
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1125 Grasping motions of hands
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4082 Diagnosing or monitoring movement diseases, e.g. Parkinson, Huntington or Tourette
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/449 Nail evaluation, e.g. for nail disorder diagnosis
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4842 Monitoring progression or stage of a disease
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6826 Finger
• CPC Class Codes: G01B 7/18 using change in resistance
• CPC Class Codes: G01B 7/20 formed by printed-circuit technique

Abstract

A sensor includes a bridge circuit including one or more strain gauges mounted on a nail plate, the bridge circuit outputting a voltage signal, an amplifier circuit amplifying the voltage signal output by the bridge circuit to generate an amplified signal, an analog-to-digital (A/D) converter converting the amplified signal into a digital signal, a controller receiving the digital signal and facilitating communication with a receiver, and an antenna configured to transmit the digital signal.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a sensor comprising;

a bridge circuit including one or more strain gauges mounted on a nail plate, the bridge circuit outputting a voltage signal;

an amplifier circuit amplifying the voltage signal output by the bridge circuit to generate an amplified signal;

an analog-to-digital (A/D) converter converting the amplified signal into a digital signal;

a controller receiving the digital signal and facilitating communication with a receiver; and

an antenna configured to transmit the digital signal.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the bridge circuit comprises:

a first strain gauge configured to capture strain in a first direction; and

a second strain gauge configured to capture strain in a second direction different than the first direction.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the bridge circuit comprises:

a first strain gauge configured to capture strain in a first direction; and

a second strain gauge configured to capture strain in the first direction.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the antenna converts a signal received from the receiver into an electric current powering the sensor.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the sensor further comprises a power supply powering one or more of the bridge circuit, the amplifier circuit, the A/D converter, the controller and the antenna.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising the receiver, the receiver comprising a processor processing the digital signal into a parameter associated with stress in the nail plate.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the processor processes the digital signal using a mapping associated with a configuration of the first and second strain gauges of the sensor.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the controller is a communications controller.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the controller comprises a micro controller and a communications controller, wherein the micro controller is disposed between the A/D converter and the communications controller.

10. The system of claim 1, further comprising a micro controller, wherein at least one of the amplifier circuit and the A/D converter are implemented as software executed by the micro controller.

11-15. -15. (canceled)

16. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions which when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform a method, said method comprising:

measuring, using at least one sensor, strain on a nail plate of a subject, wherein the at least one sensor output a data stream corresponding to the measuring;

communicating the data stream to a receiver; and

interpreting, by the receiver, the data stream to determine a parameter of interest of the subject.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the parameter of interest is a state of the subject, the method further comprising tracking a progression of the state of the subject over time.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 16, further comprising learning a mapping from the data stream to the parameter of interest of the subject, where the mapping corresponds to a configuration of the strain gauge.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 16, further comprising learning one of a model and a classifier from known inputs of the subject and corresponding strain measurements, wherein the classifier is used in performing the interpretation of the data stream.