Respiration rate determining apparatus, respiration rate determining method, and program recording medium

• US 10,602,961 B2
• Filed: 09/27/2017
• Issued: 03/31/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 01/29/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd. (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd. (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Hirose, Yoshifumi, Araki, Shoichi
• Primary Examiner(s): Cerioni, Daniel L
• Application Number:
  US15/716,907
• Publication Number:
  US 20180035916A1
• Time in Patent Office: 916 Days
• Field of Search: 600529
• 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 5/0816 Measuring devices for examining respiratory frequency measuring frequency of electric signals G01R23/00
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/113 occurring during breathing
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6804 Garments; Clothes
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7257 using Fourier transforms
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7278 Artificial waveform generation or derivation, e.g. synthesising signals from measured signals A61B5/327 takes precedence

Abstract

A respiration rate determining apparatus includes: an obtaining unit which obtains accelerations in directions that are mutually different, the accelerations being obtained by an acceleration sensor measuring a body movement by respiration of a user; a transform unit which transforms the accelerations in the directions obtained by the obtaining unit, into spectrum information items in a frequency domain; a phase removing unit which transforms the spectrum information items into amplitude spectra by removing phase information from the spectrum information items; a peak detector which adds up the amplitude spectra and detects a peak frequency based on an amplitude spectrum resulting from the adding up, the peak frequency indicating a respiratory component; and a respiration rate calculator which calculates a respiration rate using the peak frequency.

Claims

1. A respiration rate determining apparatus, comprising:

a memory configured to store a program;

one or more processors configured to execute the program and control the respiration rate determining apparatus to;

obtain accelerations in directions that are mutually different, measure a body movement by respiration of a user;

transform the accelerations in the directions obtained into spectrum information items in a frequency domain;

transform the spectrum information items into amplitude spectra by removing phase information from the spectrum information items;

add up the amplitude spectra and detect a peak frequency based on an amplitude spectrum resulting from the adding up, the peak frequency indicating a respiratory component; and

calculate a respiration rate using the peak frequency.

2. The respiration rate determining apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the one or more processors are further configured to execute the program and control the respiration rate determining apparatus to transform each of the accelerations in the directions into a corresponding one of the spectrum information items, using fast Fourier transform.

3. The respiration rate determining apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the one or more processors are further configured to execute the program and control the respiration rate determining apparatus to perform the transformation for a duration of one to ten respiration periods.

4. The respiration rate determining apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the one or more processors are further configured to execute the program and control the respiration rate determining apparatus to detect the peak frequency in a detection range of from 0.08 Hz to 0.5 Hz, inclusive.

5. The respiration rate determining apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the one or more processors are further configured to execute the program and control the respiration rate determining apparatus to obtain the accelerations in the directions from a terminal attached to a body of the user, by communicating with the terminal, and

the respiration rate determining apparatus is structurally separate from the terminal.

6. The respiration rate determining apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein

the respiration rate determining apparatus obtains the accelerations, performs the transformation, removes the phase information, detects the peak frequency, and calculates the respiration rate.