Non-invasive optical measurement of blood flow speed
OwnerYu-Hwa Lo, Ce Zhanginventors
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Abstract
Systems and methods for determining a speed of blood flow in a blood vessel which include interacting light with blood in the blood vessel, measuring, using a light detector, a characteristic related to time variations of electric field of light which interacted with the blood in the blood vessel, and generating a numeric value indicative of the blood flow speed in the blood vessel using an autocorrelation function of the electric field associated with the light which interacted with the blood in the blood vessel.
Claims22
A method of non-invasive blood flow speed measurement in a blood vessel, comprising:
- illuminating an area of a body comprising the blood vessel using a light source such that light from the light source interacts with blood in the blood vessel;
- receiving light which interacted with the blood in the blood vessel by a light detector;
- generating, by the light detector, one or more signals corresponding to the light which interacted with the blood in the blood vessel received by the light detector, wherein the one or more signals are indicative of temporal variations of an electric field associated with the light received by the light detector;
- generating a numeric value indicative of the blood flow speed in the blood vessel using an autocorrelation function of the electric field associated with the light received by the light detector,
- wherein said generating the numeric value is performed without using any dimension of the blood vessel or any mechanical property of the blood vessel.
A system for non-invasive blood speed measurements, comprising:
- one or more light sources configured to produce light to illuminate an area of a body comprising a blood vessel;
- one or more light detectors positioned to receive light subsequent to interaction with blood in the blood vessel and to generate one or more signals corresponding to received light after interaction with the blood in the blood vessel, the one or more signals indicative of temporal variations of an electric field associated with the received light;
- a processor coupled to the one or more light detectors;
- and
- a memory comprising processor executable code, wherein the processor executable code, upon execution by the processor, causes the processor to:
- receive information corresponding to the one or more signals generated by the one or more light detectors and determine an estimate of a blood flow speed in the blood vessel using an autocorrelation function of the electric field associated with the received light without using any dimension of the blood vessel or any mechanical property of the blood vessel.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.