Passive fetal heart rate monitoring apparatus and method with enhanced fetal heart beat discrimination
First Claim
1. A passive fetal heart rate monitoring apparatus comprising:
- a passive fetal heart rate monitoring sensor having a plurality of sensor elements for acquiring acoustic signals emitted from a fetus inside a body and outputting a plurality of sensor signals in response to the acoustic signals;
a signal processing device, including receivers, amplifiers, and filters for outputting a plurality of processed signals in response to the sensor signals;
means for detecting fetal heart beats comprising a neural network, responsive to the plurality of processed signals, for identifying regions of fetal heart beats on each signal, and for outputting a functional value indicative of the presence of fetal heart beats for each processed signal;
fetal heart rate determining means, responsive to the plurality of functional values indicative of the presence of fetal heart beats, for determining and outputting a fetal heart rate.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An apparatus for acquiring signals emitted by a fetus, identifying fetal heart beats and determining a fetal heart rate. Multiple sensor signals are outputted by a passive fetal heart rate monitoring sensor. Multiple parallel nonlinear filters filter these multiple sensor signals to identify fetal heart beats in the signal data. A processor determines a fetal heart rate based on these identified fetal heart beats. The processor includes the use of a figure of merit weighting of heart rate estimates based on the identified heart beats from each filter for each signal. The fetal heart rate thus determined is outputted to a display, storage, or communications channel. A method for enhanced fetal heart beat discrimination includes acquiring signals from a fetus, identifying fetal heart beats from the signals by multiple parallel nonlinear filtering, and determining a fetal heart rate based on the identified fetal heart beats. A figure of merit operation in this method provides for weighting a plurality of fetal heart rate estimates based on the identified fetal heart beats and selecting the highest ranking fetal heart rate estimate.
74 Citations
32 Claims
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1. A passive fetal heart rate monitoring apparatus comprising:
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a passive fetal heart rate monitoring sensor having a plurality of sensor elements for acquiring acoustic signals emitted from a fetus inside a body and outputting a plurality of sensor signals in response to the acoustic signals; a signal processing device, including receivers, amplifiers, and filters for outputting a plurality of processed signals in response to the sensor signals; means for detecting fetal heart beats comprising a neural network, responsive to the plurality of processed signals, for identifying regions of fetal heart beats on each signal, and for outputting a functional value indicative of the presence of fetal heart beats for each processed signal; fetal heart rate determining means, responsive to the plurality of functional values indicative of the presence of fetal heart beats, for determining and outputting a fetal heart rate. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A passive fetal heart rate monitoring apparatus comprising:
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a passive fetal heart rate monitoring sensor having a plurality of sensor elements for acquiring acoustic signals emitted from a fetus inside a body and outputting a plurality of sensor signals in response to the acoustic signals; a signal processing device, including receivers, amplifiers, and filters for outputting a plurality of processed signals in response to the sensor signals; means for detecting fetal heart beats comprising a Teager Energy Operator, responsive to the plurality of processed signals, for identifying regions of fetal heart beats on each signal, and for outputting a functional value indicative of the presence of fetal heart beats for each processed signal; fetal heart rate determining means, responsive to the plurality of functional values indicative of the presence of fetal heart beats, for determining and outputting a fetal heart rate. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A method for passive fetal heart rate monitoring of a fetus in a body comprising:
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acquiring acoustic signals emitted from a fetus inside a body and outputting a plurality of sensor signals in response to the acoustic signals; receiving, amplifying, and filtering outputting a plurality of processed signals in response to the sensor signals; detecting fetal heart beats using a neural network, responsive to the plurality of processed signals, identifying regions of fetal heart beats on each signal, and outputting a functional value indicative of the presence of fetal heart beats for each processed signal; determining and outputting the fetal heart rate in response to the plurality of functional values indicative of the presence of fetal heart beats. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25)
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26. A passive fetal heart rate monitoring method comprising the steps of:
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acquiring acoustic signals emitted from a fetus inside a body and outputting a plurality of sensor signals in response to the acoustic signals; processing the signals using a signal processing device having receivers, amplifiers, and filters, and outputting a plurality of processed signals in response to the sensor signals; detecting fetal heart beats using a Teager Energy Operator responsive to the plurality of processed signals, identifying regions of fetal heart beats on each signal, and outputting a functional value indicative of the presence of fetal heart beats for each processed signal; determining and outputting a fetal heart rate in response to the plurality of functional values indicative of the presence of fetal heart beats. - View Dependent Claims (27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32)
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Specification