Animal instrumentation

• US 7,673,587 B2
• Filed: 05/10/2007
• Issued: 03/09/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/24/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Equusys Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Equusys Incorporated
• Inventors: Davies, Michael Allan Martin
• Primary Examiner(s): ABBOTT, YVONNE RENEE
• Application Number:
  US11/746,889
• Publication Number:
  US 20070204801A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,034 Days
• Field of Search: 119/712, 119/859, 119/421
• US Class Current: 119/712
• 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 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, including receiving signals characterizing a trajectory of a limb of the animal; and

processing the received signals, including forming data representing a three-dimensional trajectory of the limb of the animal and identifying an injury condition based on the three-dimensional trajectory of the limb;

wherein the injury condition is characterized by a quality of a type of the trajectory of the limb of the animal.

2. The method of claim 1 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.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the injury condition includes at least one of an actual injury and a predisposition to an injury.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the type of the trajectory of the limb includes paddling.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the type of the trajectory of the limb includes at least one of pointing and flipping of a hoof

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the quality of the type of the trajectory of the limb includes smoothness of an overall limb motion.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the quality of the type of the trajectory of the limb depends on trajectories of multiple limb segments.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the quality of the type of the trajectory of the limb depends on relative motion of said limb segments.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the quality of the type of the type of the trajectory of the limb includes an asymmetry and/or irregularity of the type of a trajectory of a limb.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein said physical and/or physiological parameters include a parameter from the group consisting of:

stride length;

stride rate;

height and length of a foot flight arc;

alterations in foot flight;

magnitude and timing of joint angles;

extension of a limb;

range of limb motion; and

relative force and pressure on different hooves.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

upon identification of the injury condition, providing a feedback signal to alert a rider of the animal to the injury condition.

12. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

based on the injury condition, providing a recommendation on a post-injury treatment of the animal.