Wireless, ultrasonic personal health monitoring system
AssigneeAliveUSA LLC
InventorsDavid Albert, Bruce Richard Satchwell, Kim Norman Barnett
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A personal monitoring device has a sensor assembly configured to sense physiological signals upon contact with a user's skin. The sensor assembly produces electrical signals representing the sensed physiological signals. A converter assembly, integrated with, and electrically connected to the sensor assembly, converts the electrical signals generated by the sensor assembly to a frequency modulated inaudible ultrasonic sound signal. The ultrasonic signal is demodulated from an aliased signal produced by undersampling.
Claims34
A personal monitoring device comprising:
- a sensor assembly configured to sense physiological signals upon contact with a user's skin and to produce electrical signals representing the sensed physiological signals;
- a converter assembly including an audio transmitter, the converter assembly integrated with, and electrically connected to the sensor assembly and configured to receive the electrical signals generated by the sensor and output those signals through the audio transmitter to a microphone in a computing device within range of the audio transmitter, wherein the converter assembly is further configured to output the signals as an inaudible, ultrasonic, frequency modulated (FM) sound signal.
An ECG device comprising:
- an electrode assembly configured to sense heart-related signals upon contact with a user's skin, and to convert the sensed heart-related signals to ECG electrical signals;
- and
- a converter assembly including an audio transmitter, the converter assembly integrated with, and electrically connected to the sensor assembly and configured to receive the ECG electrical signals generated by the sensor and output ECG sound signals through the audio transmitter to a microphone in a computing device within range of the audio transmitter, wherein the converter assembly is further configured to output the ECG signals as an ultrasonic FM sound signal.
A smartphone protective case, usable as an ECG device, comprising:
- an electrode assembly configured to sense heart-related signals upon contact with a user's skin, and to convert the sensed heart-related signals to an ECG electric signal;
- and
- a converter assembly integrated with, and electrically connected to the electrode assembly, the converter assembly configured to convert the electric ECG signal generated by the electrode assembly to an ultrasonic FM sound signal having a carrier frequency in the range of from about 18 kHz to about 24 kHz, and further configured to output the ultrasonic FM sound signal through an audio transmitter at a signal strength capable of being received by a smartphone positioned within the smartphone protective case.
A system for generating and transferring medical data, the system comprising:
- an electrode assembly configured to sense heart-related signals upon contact with a user's skin, and to convert the sensed heart-related signals to ECG electrical signals;
- a converter assembly including an audio transmitter, the converter assembly integrated with, and electrically connected to the electrode assembly and configured to convert the ECG electrical signals to an ultrasonic FM sound signal and output the ultrasonic FM sound signal through the audio transmitter to a microphone in a computing device, wherein an analog to digital converter (ADC) of the computing device is configured to sample the signal from the microphone and convert it to a digital audio signal;
- and
- demodulation software stored on a non-transitory computer readable medium and executable by the computing device to cause the computing device to (1) under-sample the digital audio signal, aliasing it to a lower frequency band, and (2) demodulate the aliased digital audio signal at the lower frequency band to produce an ECG output.
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a set of instructions capable of being executed by one or more computing devices, that when executed by the one or more computing devices causes the one or more computing devices to demodulate a digitized FM audio signal having a carrier frequency in the range of from about 18 kHz to about 24 kHz by at least (1) under-sampling the digitized FM audio signal, thereby aliasing it to a lower frequency band, and (2) demodulating the aliased digital FM audio signal at the lower frequency band to produce an ECG output.
A method of health monitoring, comprising the steps of:
- placing an electrode assembly of an ECG device in contact with a user's skin, wherein the electrode assembly is configured to sense heart-related signals and convert the sensed heart-related signals to ECG electrical signals;
- utilizing a converter assembly of the ECG device to transmit the ECG signals as an ultrasonic FM sound signal, wherein the converter assembly includes an audio transmitter, the converter assembly integrated with, and electrically connected to the sensor assembly and configured to receive the ECG electrical signals generated by the sensor and output ECG sound signals through the audio transmitter as an ultrasonic FM sound signal;
- receiving the ultrasonic FM sound signal at a microphone in a computing device within range of the audio transmitter, demodulating the ultrasonic FM signal and recording the resulting ECG output;
- and
- optionally recording spoken voice messages simultaneously with the ECG.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.