Chemical and biological agent sensor array detectors

• US 7,171,312 B2
• Filed: 10/29/2003
• Issued: 01/30/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 07/19/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Environmental Technologies Group, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Smiths Detection (Smiths Group International Holdings Ltd.)
• Inventors: Hsiung, Chang-Meng, Sunshine, Steven, Steinthal, Gregory, Burch, Tim, Plotkin, Neil
• Primary Examiner(s): Nghiem; Michael
• Assistant Examiner(s): Le; Toan M.
• Application Number:
  US10/698,042
• Publication Number:
  US 20040204915A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,189 Days
• Field of Search: 702/32, 702/22, 702/19, 73/310.5, 422/82.02, 340/522, 340/573.1, 340/511
• US Class Current: 702/32
• CPC Class Codes: B82Y 30/00 Nanotechnology for materials or surface science, e.g. nanocomposites
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 33/0031 comprising two or more sensors, e.g. a sensor array electrochemical electrode arrays G01N27/27
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 33/0063 using a threshold to release an alarm or displaying means alarm arrangements G08B, e.g. fire alarm actuated by the presence of smoke or gases G08B17/10, for other abnormal conditions G08B21/00
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 33/0075 for multiple spatially distributed sensors, e.g. for environmental monitoring transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 33/48707 by electrical means G01N33/49, G01N33/493 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/12 responsive to undesired emission of substances, e.g. pollution alarms
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/80 for detecting, monitoring or modelling epidemics or pandemics, e.g. flu
• CPC Class Codes: Y02A 90/10 Information and communication technologies [ICT] supporting adaptation to climate change, e.g. for weather forecasting or climate simulation

Abstract

Chemical and biological detector systems, devices and apparatus. Such devices may be portable and wearable, such as badges, that are analyte-general, rather than analyte-specific, and which provide an optimal way to notify and protect personnel against known and unknown airborne chemical and biological hazards. The devices of the present invention are advantageously low-cost, have low-power requirements, may be wearable and are designed to detect and alarm to a general chemical and biological threat. A sensor device of the present invention in one embodiment includes two or more sensor devices, a processing module coupled to each of the sensor devices and configured to process signals received from each of the two or more sensor devices to determine an environmental state; and a communication module that communicates information about the environmental state to a user.

Claims

1. A biological agent detection apparatus, comprising:

a substrate;

an array of two or more sensors arranged on the substrate, wherein at least a first one of the sensors includes a sensing element configured to detect a biological agent;

a power module for supplying power to the detection apparatus;

a pick-up antenna, wherein the power is supplied by an external RF field received by the antenna;

a processing module directly coupled to each of the sensors and configured to process signals received from the two or more sensors to produce an output signal; and

a communication module configured to provide information to a user in response to the output signal having a value at or above a threshold value,

wherein the array of two or more sensors includes;

an activating unit configured to activate only one of said two or more sensors at any point in time, in order to reduce power consumption of the apparatus,

wherein the activating unit comprises;

at least one shift register for selectively accessing one of the two or more sensors;

decoding circuitry for decoding an output of the at least one shift register;

a switch for receiving the decoded outputs of the decoding circuitry, and for toggling a current based on the decoded outputs; and

a resistive sensor element for receiving the toggled current, wherein the toggled current is utilized to access only one of the two or more sensors at any point in time.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to execute a first process that detects a change in an environmental condition, and a second process that identifies an origin of the change in the environmental condition.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the second process includes a pattern recognition algorithm.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, further including a communication module configured to provide the output signal to an external intelligence device.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the communication module includes one of a wireless interface and a physical bus interface for communicating with the external intelligence device.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the wireless interface device includes one of an RF transmitter, an RF transceiver, an IR transmitter and an IR transceiver.

7. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the physical bus interface includes one of an RS-232 port, a USB port and a Firewire port.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the communication module includes one of a LED, speaker, buzzer and vibration mechanism.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein at least two of the sensors are polymer composite sensors.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein at least a second one of the sensors is a chemical sensor.

11. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the sensing element of the first sensor is selected from the group consisting of a polymer composite sensor, a surface modified carbon black sensor, a sol-gel encapsulated enzyme, a biopolymer, a self assembling monolayer, an intrinsically conducting polymer, a carbon nanotube composite, a nanogold composite and a nanoscale polymer composite.

12. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus has a dimension of less than about 4 square inches.

13. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus has a dimension of less than about 1 square inch.

14. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the sensors and the processing module are integrated on the substrate.

15. The apparatus of claim 1, further including an attachment mechanism for allowing a user to wear the apparatus.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the attachment mechanism includes one of a clip and a pin.

17. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the sensing element of the first sensor is an intrinsically conducting polymer selected from the group consisting of polyaniline and polythiophene.

18. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus is used to diagnose a disease or determine a biological agent based on sampling the atmosphere or a bodily fluid.

19. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein a second one of the sensors includes a sensing element configured to detect a biological element different from the biological agent detectable by the first sensor.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, further comprising a communication module configured to communicate with an external processor.

21. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the communication module includes a wireless transmitter device.

22. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the wireless transmitter device includes one of an RF transmitter and an IR transmitter.

23. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising a transistor housed on the substrate and configured to reduce noise and switch resistance for the two or more sensors.

24. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising analog circuitry configured to provide gain, baseline tracking and radiometric sensing.

25. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

wakeup circuitry coupled to the power module and configured to activate the two or more sensors at periodic intervals, and to turn off the two of more sensors at all other times between adjacent ones of the periodic intervals.

26. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the apparatus is maintained in a lower-power-consumption ON mode during the all other times between the adjacent ones of the periodic intervals.

27. A biological agent detection apparatus, comprising:

a substrate;

an array of two or more sensors arranged on the substrate, wherein at least a first one of the sensors includes a sensing element configured to detect a biological agent;

a power module for supplying power to the detection apparatus;

a pick-up antenna, wherein the power is supplied by an external RF field received by the antenna;

a processing module directly coupled to each of the sensors and configured to process signals received from the two or more sensors to produce an output signal;

a communication module configured to provide information to a user in response to the output signal having a value at or above a threshold value; and

a controlling unit configured to control the processing module to cause the processing module to read out the signals from the two or more sensors in a particular sequential order, so as to prioritize certain sensors of the two or more sensors with respect to other sensors of the two or more sensors,

wherein the array of two or more sensors includes;

an activating unit configured to activate only one of said two or more sensors at any point in time, in order to reduce power consumption of the apparatus.