IV monitoring by video and image processing
First Claim
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1. An apparatus for IV dripping speed monitoring, comprising:
- a containing box that holds the drip chamber;
an image capturing device, to capture video of the dripping process;
a processing unit to perform analysis of the captured video;
wherein said processing unit monitors the dripping speed based on a signal which is obtained from analyzing the image sequence, wherein the elements of the signal are influenced or driven by the dripping process; and
wherein the dripping speed is determined by performing Fourier analysis methods on the signal.
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Abstract
We describe a method and apparatus for monitoring the dripping speed in IV process, as well as detecting the its end. The apparatus includes a camera and a processing unit to analyze the information from the acquired video. Features from the image sequence are extracted and the dripping speed is computed accordingly by discrete Fourier transform. The apparatus is also capable of detecting the end of the dripping process by finding the location of liquid surface in the drip chamber. We also describe the use of barcode to provide information to the monitoring device and program.
96 Citations
17 Claims
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1. An apparatus for IV dripping speed monitoring, comprising:
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a containing box that holds the drip chamber; an image capturing device, to capture video of the dripping process; a processing unit to perform analysis of the captured video; wherein said processing unit monitors the dripping speed based on a signal which is obtained from analyzing the image sequence, wherein the elements of the signal are influenced or driven by the dripping process; and wherein the dripping speed is determined by performing Fourier analysis methods on the signal. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3)
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4. A method for obtaining a characteristic value of a drip from images of an IV dripping chamber, comprising:
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determining connected components indicative of drips within the image using a connectivity criteria; ranking the connected components according to a numerical measure of their respective size; identifying a connected component of a certain rank from the ranked connected components; and computing a characteristic value, indicative of the vertical location of the drips during the dripping process, for the identified connected component. - View Dependent Claims (5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. A method for obtaining a characteristic value of a drip from images of an IV dripping chamber, comprising:
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processing the image with techniques including image enhancement, thresholding, or reducing or removing relatively smaller parts in the image, or combinations thereof; determining connected components indicative of drips within the processed image using a connectivity criteria; ranking the connected components according to a numerical measure of their respective size; identifying a connected component of a certain rank from the ranked connected components, wherein the identified component is the one of the largest size or largest connected component; computing a characteristic value, indicative of the vertical location of the drips during the dripping process, for the identified connected component; and wherein the image enhancement techniques include the use of a Sobel operator, a Prewitt operator, or a Laplacian operator, or combinations thereof. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14)
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15. A method for determining IV dripping speed with Fourier analysis methods, comprising:
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capturing a sequence of images of an IV dripping sequence, using an image capturing device, wherein at least some of the images contain part or all of the dripping chamber; processing at least some temporally evenly spaced images and extracting from each image a numerical value that is influenced or driven by the dripping process and storing the values into a vector; using a Fourier analysis method to determine periodicity in the stored vector; and using the periodicity combined with the temporal spacing of the images to calculate the dripping speed. - View Dependent Claims (16)
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17. A method for determining IV dripping speed comprising:
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capturing a sequence of images of an IV dripping sequence, using an image capturing device, wherein at least some of the images contain part or all of the dripping chamber; processing some temporally evenly spaced images and extracting from each image a numerical value that is influenced or driven by the dripping process and storing the values into a vector, wherein the extraction is of the drip trajectory less than 4 cm from the lowest part of the dripping mouth from which the drip comes out; applying frequency estimation methods to determine periodicity in the stored vector; and calculating the dripping speed by utilizing the periodicity information and the temporal distance of the images from which the vector elements were computed.
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Specification