Adaptive shadow control system for a surgical lighting system
AssigneeAmerican Sterilizer Company
InventorsMichael Hollopeter, David Jesurun
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Abstract
An adaptive shadow control system that compensates for blockage of one lighthead of a surgical lighting system by increasing the light output from one or more other lightheads of the lighting system. The system also includes control logic for automatic enablement/disablement of adaptive shadow control by detecting whether there is blockage of a lighthead and whether the respective light beams of a plurality of lightheads are being aggregated to form a single aggregated co-illumination light pattern at a work area.
Claims15
A surgical lighting system comprising:
- a first lighthead for illuminating a work area, said first lighthead formed as a unitary lighthead assembly;
- a first sensor assembly associated with the first lighthead for detecting blockage of light between the first lighthead and the work area;
- a second lighthead for illuminating the work area, said second lighthead formed as a unitary lighthead assembly;
- and
- an adaptive shadow control for receiving a blockage detection signal from the first sensor assembly and increasing the light output from the unitary lighthead assembly of at least one of the lightheads to compensate for the blockage.
A surgical lighting system comprising:
- a plurality of lightheads for illuminating a work area, each of said lightheads having respective lighting modules that are pulsed between ON and OFF states, wherein the respective lighting modules of each lighthead are pulsed out of phase;
- a first sensor assembly associated with one of the lighthead to detect asynchronous ON and OFF pulsations from the lighting modules;
- a control system for determining whether the signals detected by the sensor assembly are within a threshold light level indicative of a co-illumination lighting mode resulting from an aggregated light pattern of overlapping light beams from a plurality of lightheads;
- and
- an adaptive shadow control function of the control system for adjusting light output produced by at least one of the lightheads, wherein said adaptive shadow control function is activated in response to the detected co-illumination lighting mode.
A process for controlling a surgical lighting system including a plurality of lightheads, the process comprising:
- detecting blockage of at least one of the plurality of lightheads between the lighthead and a work area;
- detecting a co-illumination lighting mode resulting from overlapping light beams from more than one of the plurality of lightheads into a single light pattern at a work area;
- and
- in response to detecting both the blockage and the co-illumination lighting mode, activating an adaptive shadow control for varying light output from at least one of the lightheads to the work area.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.