Medical vaporizer with carrier gas characterization, measurement, and/or compensation
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorDouglas Kirk Bottom
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A medical vaporizer is provided. In one embodiment, dual-purpose sensors are employed, such as in a configuration in which one is positioned in the mixed gas flow channel and one is positioned in the main gas flow channel. The sensors provide measurements that may be used to determine both gas flow and gas concentration in the mixed and main gas channels, even when the identity and/or properties of the gas in the main gas channel are unknown. The measurements derived from the dual-purpose sensors may be used to measure and report the total anesthetic being delivered at the vaporizer output and/or improve vaporizer accuracy.
Claims10
A medical vaporizer, comprising:
- a main gas channel through which a first gas flows during operation, wherein the first gas is unknown to a vaporizer controller;
- a side gas channel, comprising one or more side channel control valves that during operation control a second flow of a second gas through the side gas channel;
- a mixed gas channel configured to receive the first flow of the first gas and the second flow of the second gas during operation and to output a mixed gas;
- a first dual-purpose sensor positioned in the main gas channel and configured to generate a first set of measurements during operation;
- a second dual-purpose sensor positioned in the mixed gas channel and configured to generate a second set of measurements during operation, wherein the first and second dual-purpose sensors are each configured both to measure gas flow and generate measurements for gas concentration;
- and
- the vaporizer controller configured to receive the first set of measurements, the second set of measurements, and a stored calibration measurement set, to calculate one or more of the identity of one or more components of the first gas or concentration of one or more components of the first gas based on the first set of measurements and the stored calibration measurement set, to calculate concentration of one or more components of the mixed gas based on the second set of measurements, and to control operation of one or more of the side channel control valves based upon one or more of the calculated identities or concentrations, wherein the stored calibration measurement set is derived from time-of-flight measurements by the first dual-purpose sensor of a known gas flowing through the main gas channel, and wherein the vaporizer controller is configured to utilize the calculated identity or concentration of the one or more components of the first gas flowing in the main gas channel to correct measurements of gas flow in one or more of the main gas channel and the mixed gas channel and to correct the calculated concentration of the one or more components of the mixed gas in the mixed gas channel.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.