Method of and apparatus for diagnosing leg pathologies in quadrupeds

An automatic apparatus for diagnosing pathologies of the distal parts (15ps, 15pd) of the limbs of a quadruped (15), comprising:

• at least one thermal camera (11) for generating thermographic images of said limbs;
• a processing system (13) programmed for processing the thermographic images and for providing, as a result of the processing, a diagnosis on the presence, if any, of one out of a plurality of pathologies and, in case the presence of the pathology is detected, on the kind of pathology;
• characterised in that the processing system (13) includes:
• means (20B) for identifying, in each thermographic image and for each limb concerned by the diagnosis, an area containing said distal part (15ps, 15pd), extracting from said area an identified image of the distal part, and validating identified images complying with predetermined criteria as images utilisable for diagnostic purposes;
• means (20C) for extracting features significant for the detection of the presence and the kind of pathology from the validated images;
• classification means (20D) for classifying the distal part of a limb as unaffected by pathologies or as affected by a specific pathology on the basis of such features.