Thermometer having a digital infrared sensor

• US 8,950,935 B1
• Filed: 07/31/2014
• Issued: 02/10/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 07/04/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ARC Devices, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Arc Devices (Ni) Limited
• Inventors: Khachaturian, Mark, Smith, Michael G.
• Primary Examiner(s): Jagan, Mirellys
• Application Number:
  US14/448,223
• Time in Patent Office: 194 Days
• Field of Search: 374/121, 374/170, 374/124, 600/474
• US Class Current: 374/170
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2560/0214 of power generation or supply
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2560/0475 Special features of memory means, e.g. removable memory cards
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2576/00 Medical imaging apparatus involving image processing or analysis A61B1/00009, A61B6/52 and A61B8/52 take precedence; image processing per se G06T; details of algorithms for analysing medical images G06T7/0012
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0008 Temperature signals
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0013 Medical image data A61B1/00011, A61B6/56, A61B8/56 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0059 using light, e.g. diagnosis by transillumination, diascopy, fluorescence A61B5/0093, A61B5/1455, A61B5/02416 and A61B5/0261 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0064 Body surface scanning
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0075 by spectroscopy, i.e. measuring spectra, e.g. Raman spectroscopy, infrared absorption spectroscopy A61B5/0071 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0077 Devices for viewing the surface of the body, e.g. camera, magnifying lens
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/01 Measuring temperature of body parts ; Diagnostic temperature sensing, e.g. for malignant or inflamed tissue clinical contact thermometers G01K13/20
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/015 By temperature mapping of body part
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/02055 Simultaneously evaluating both cardiovascular condition and temperature
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/021 Measuring pressure in heart or blood vessels A61B5/0205 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/024 Detecting, measuring or recording pulse rate or heart rate A61B5/0205, A61B5/021 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/02416 using photoplethysmograph signals, e.g. generated by infrared radiation A61B5/14552 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/02433 for infrared radiation
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0261 using optical means, e.g. infrared light
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0816 Measuring devices for examining respiratory frequency measuring frequency of electric signals G01R23/00
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1455 using optical sensors, e.g. spectral photometrical oximeters
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/14551 for measuring blood gases
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/14552 : Details of sensors specially adapted therefor
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/33 : specially adapted for cooperation with other devices
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/441 : Skin evaluation, e.g. for skin disorder diagnosis
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6898 : Portable consumer electronic devices, e.g. music players, telephones, tablet computers
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7225 : Details of analog processing, e.g. isolation amplifier, gain or sensitivity adjustment, filtering, baseline or drift compensation A61B5/30, A61B5/316 take precedence; transformers for specific applications H01F38/00; amplifiers H03F
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/725 : using specific filters therefor, e.g. Kalman or adaptive filters A61B5/316 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7257 : using Fourier transforms
• 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: A61B 5/7267 : involving training the classification device
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7275 : Determining trends in physiological measurement data; Predicting development of a medical condition based on physiological measurements, e.g. determining a risk factor
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7278 : Artificial waveform generation or derivation, e.g. synthesising signals from measured signals A61B5/327 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/742 : using visual displays A61B5/339 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7425 : Displaying combinations of multiple images regardless of image source, e.g. displaying a reference anatomical image with a live image geometric transforms for image registration G06T3/14; enhancement using image fusion G06T5/50; algorithms for registration of images G06T7/30
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/743 : Displaying an image simultaneously with additional graphical information, e.g. symbols, charts, function plots
• CPC Class Codes: G01J 2005/0077 : Imaging
• CPC Class Codes: G01J 5/0025 : Living bodies ear thermometers G01J5/0011; detecting, measuring or recording for diagnostic purposes A61B5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G01J 5/025 : Interfacing a pyrometer to an external device or network; User interface
• CPC Class Codes: G01J 5/0893 : Arrangements to attach devices to a pyrometer, i.e. attaching an optical interface; Spatial relative arrangement of optical elements, e.g. folded beam path G01J5/049 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01J 5/30 : Electrical features thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G01K 1/02 : Means for indicating or recording specially adapted for thermometers
• CPC Class Codes: G01K 13/223 : Infrared clinical thermometers, e.g. tympanic
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 18/23 : Clustering techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/042 : by opto-electronic means
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10004 : Still image; Photographic image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10016 : Video; Image sequence
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10024 : Color image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10048 : Infrared image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20024 : Filtering details
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20076 : Probabilistic image processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20132 : Image cropping
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30004 : Biomedical image processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30088 : Skin; Dermal
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30104 : Vascular flow; Blood flow; Perfusion
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30201 : Face
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2210/22 : Cropping
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/40 : Scaling of whole images or parts thereof, e.g. expanding or contracting
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/00 : Image enhancement or restoration
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/10 : using non-spatial domain filtering
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/20 : using local operators
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0012 : Biomedical image inspection
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0016 : involving temporal comparison
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/13 : Edge detection
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/20 : Analysis of motion motion estimation for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals H04N19/43, H04N19/51
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/90 : Determination of colour characteristics
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/40 : in video content extracting overlay text G06V20/62; video retrieval G06F16/70; processing of video elementary streams in video servers H04N21/234; processing of video elementary streams in video clients H04N21/44
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/413 : Classification of content, e.g. text, photographs or tables
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/16 : Human faces, e.g. facial parts, sketches or expressions
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• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/168 : Feature extraction; Face representation
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/172 : Classification, e.g. identification
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 30/20 : for handling medical images, e.g. DICOM, HL7 or PACS
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/63 : for local operation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/75 : Circuitry for providing, modifying or processing image signals from the pixel array
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/33 : Transforming infrared radiation cameras or camera modules for generating image signals from infrared radiation H04N23/20; circuitry of SSIS for transforming infrared radiation into image signals H04N25/20

Abstract

A non-touch thermometer that senses temperature from a digital infrared sensor is described. A digital signal representing a temperature without conversion from analog is transmitted from the digital infrared sensor received by a microprocessor and converted to body core temperature by the microprocessor.

Claims

1. A device comprising:

a first circuit board including;

a microprocessor;

a battery operably coupled to the microprocessor;

a display device operably coupled to the microprocessor;

a single button operably coupled to the microprocessor; and

a first digital interface operably coupled to the microprocessor;

a second circuit board including;

a second digital interface, the second interface being operably coupled to the first interface; and

a digital infrared sensor operably coupled to the second interface, the digital infrared sensor having ports that provide only digital readout signals,

wherein the microprocessor is operable to receive from the ports of the digital infrared sensor the digital readout signals that are representative of an infrared signal generated by the digital infrared sensor and the microprocessor is operable to determine a temperature from the digital readout signals that are representative of the infrared signal, and

wherein no analog-to-digital converter is operably coupled between the digital infrared sensor and the microprocessor.

2. The device of claim 1 wherein the display device further comprises:

a green traffic light operable to indicate that the temperature is good;

an amber traffic light operable to indicate that the temperature is low; and

a red traffic light operable to indicate that the temperature is high.

3. The device of claim 1 further comprising:

the digital infrared sensor having no analog sensor readout ports.

4. The device of claim 1 further comprising:

a camera operably coupled to the microprocessor and providing at least two images to the microprocessor;

and the microprocessor including a cropper that is operable to receive the at least two images and operable to crop the images to exclude a border area of the images, generating at least two cropped images, the microprocessor also including a temporal-variation-amplifier of at least two cropped images that is operable to generate a temporal variation, the microprocessor also including a vital-sign generator that is operably coupled to the temporal-variation-amplifier that is operable to generate at least one vital sign from the temporal variation and the microprocessor also operably coupled to the vital-sign generator that is operable to display the at least one vital sign.

5. The device of claim 4, wherein the temporal-variation-amplifier further comprises:

skin-pixel-identifier.

6. The device of claim 4, wherein the temporal-variation-amplifier further comprises:

a regional facial clusterial module.

7. The device of claim 4, wherein the temporal-variation-amplifier further comprises:

a first frequency filter.

8. The device of claim 4 further comprising:

a storage device that is operably coupled to the vital-sign generator and that is operable to store the at least one vital sign in a non-volatile memory.

9. The device of claim 4 further comprising:

a storage device that is operably coupled to the vital-sign generator and that is operable to store the at least one vital sign in a volatile memory.

10. The device of claim 4 further comprising:

a storage device that is operably coupled to the vital-sign generator and that is operable to transmit the at least one vital sign to another apparatus.

11. A non-touch thermometer to measure a temperature, the non-touch thermometer comprising:

a microprocessor;

a battery operably coupled to the microprocessor;

a single button operably coupled to the microprocessor;

a camera operably coupled to the microprocessor and providing at least two images to the microprocessor;

a digital infrared sensor operably coupled to the microprocessor with no analog-to-digital converter operably coupled between the digital infrared sensor and the microprocessor, the digital infrared sensor having only digital readout ports; and

a display device operably coupled to the microprocessor,

wherein the microprocessor is operable to receive from the digital readout ports a digital signal that is representative of an infrared signal detected by the digital infrared sensor and the microprocessor is operable to determine the temperature from the digital signal that is representative of the infrared signal.

12. The non-touch thermometer of claim 11, wherein the display device further comprises:

a green traffic light operable to indicate that the temperature is good;

an amber traffic light operable to indicate that the temperature is low; and

a red traffic light operable to indicate that the temperature is high.

13. The non-touch thermometer of claim 11, the microprocessor further comprising:

a pixel-examination-module configured to examine pixel values of the at least two images, a temporal-variation module to determine temporal variation of the pixel values between the at least two images being below a particular threshold, a signal processing module configured to amplify the temporal variation resulting in amplified temporal variation, and a visualizer to visualize a pattern of flow of blood in the amplified temporal variation in the at least two images.

14. The non-touch thermometer of claim 11 further comprising:

the digital infrared sensor having no analog sensor readout ports.

15. A non-touch thermometer to measure a temperature, the non-touch thermometer comprising:

a microprocessor;

a battery operably coupled to the microprocessor;

a single button operably coupled to the microprocessor;

a camera operably coupled to the microprocessor and providing at least two images to the microprocessor;

a digital infrared sensor operably coupled to the microprocessor with no analog-to-digital converter operably coupled between the digital infrared sensor and the microprocessor, the digital infrared sensor having only digital readout ports, the digital infrared sensor having no analog sensor readout ports; and

a display device operably coupled to the microprocessor,

wherein the microprocessor is operable to receive from the digital readout ports a digital signal that is representative of an infrared signal detected by the digital infrared sensor and the microprocessor is operable to determine the temperature from the digital signal that is representative of the infrared signal.

16. The non-touch thermometer of claim 15, wherein the display device further comprises:

a green traffic light operable to indicate that the temperature is good;

an amber traffic light operable to indicate that the temperature is low; and

a red traffic light operable to indicate that the temperature is high.

17. The non-touch thermometer of claim 15, the microprocessor further comprising:

a pixel-examination-module configured to examine pixel values of the at least two images, a temporal-variation module to determine temporal variation of the pixel values between the at least two images being below a particular threshold, a signal processing module configured to amplify the temporal variation resulting in amplified temporal variation, and a visualizer to visualize a pattern of flow of blood in the amplified temporal variation in the at least two images.

18. The non-touch thermometer of claim 15 further comprising:

a first circuit board including;

the microprocessor, the battery, the display device and the single button; and

a first digital interface operably coupled to the microprocessor; and

a second circuit board including;

the digital infrared sensor; and

a second digital interface, the second interface being operably coupled to the first interface and the second digital interface being operably coupled to the digital infrared sensor.