Communications: electrical – Condition responsive indicating system – Specific condition
Reexamination Certificate
1998-05-04
2004-02-03
Tong, Nina (Department: 2632)
Communications: electrical
Condition responsive indicating system
Specific condition
C340S561000, C340S562000, C340S568100, C324S071100, C324S072000, C324S452000, C324S457000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06686842
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for locating various entities, including human beings and animals, by observing and detecting a force and subsequent resulting torque, acceleration, vibration or other measurable, quantifiable manifestation of the force created by the non-uniform three-dimensional electric field spatial gradient pattern exhibited uniquely by an entity and being detected by the device of the present invention as used by the device's human operator.
The detection of visually obscured entities has many uses in fire-fighting, search and rescue operations, law enforcement operations, military operations, etc. While prior art devices are known that detect humans, animals and other materials, some by measuring changes in an electrostatic field, none of the operable prior art devices uses the force resulting from the non-uniform electric field squared spatial gradient three-dimensional pattern exhibited uniquely by an entity to indicate the precise location and line-of-bearing direction of the subject entity relative to the device's human operator.
By using an electrokinetic effect, dielectrophoresis, which induces a force and subsequent resulting torque on an antenna and other component parts of the device, the present invention gives a rapid line-of-bearing directional location indication of the subject entity. A meter can also be provided to indicate the direction of strongest non-uniform electric field squared spatial gradient signal strength for those situations where the dielectrophoretic force and subsequent resulting torque, acceleration, vibration or any other measurable quantifiable manifestation of the force is extremely small and difficult to detect.
It should be noted that while the present invention works for many different types of entities, a primary use of the present invention is to locate animate entities and, in particular, human beings, irrespective of the presence or absence of obscuring material structures (walls, trees, earthen mounds, etc.), of rfi and emi interference signals, of adverse weather conditions, and of day or night visibility conditions.
The nature and source of an animate entity's (in particular human) electric field and its spatial gradient being detected in the dielectrophoresis effect generating the directionally self-correcting force and subsequent torque characteristic of an animate entity, line-of-bearing locator device has been discussed in
Bioelectromagnetism
, R. Plonsey et al. (eds.), Oxford University Press (1995) and R. A. Rhoades,
Human Physiology
, Harcourt Brace Javanioch (1992). The empirical evidence in the case of humans is quite persuasive that human heart electro-physiology generates by far the strongest electric field and spatial gradient pattern. In human physiology, the central and peripheral nervous system neurons, the sensory system cells, the skeletal muscular system, the independent cardiac conduction cells, and the cardiac muscle system cells operate via polarization and depolarization phenomena occurring across all respective cellular membranes. The electric potentials associated with these polarization fluctuations are routinely used at a human body surface for empirical correlation/clinical diagnostic purposes, such as the ECG for the heart and the EEG for the brain. The heart has by far (about a factor of 70 compared to the brain) the largest voltage, electric field and electric field spatial gradient pattern in the human body compared to the other operating systems mentioned above.
The human heart is a special case wherein the conduction SA node, the VA node, Purkinje fibers, etc. provide high polarization (95 mV) and very rapid (ms) depolarization (110 mV) potentials. The dipole electric field fluctuations are periodic and frequent. The carrier frequency of de- and re-polarizations occurs in a range of 72 for adults to 120 in babies (beats per min. or 1.2 to 2.0 Hz). The frequency spectra of ECG patterns have main lobes at about 17 Hz. In sub-ULF (0 to 3 Hz) and ULF (3 to 30 Hz) frequency ranges, the electric and magnetic fields are quasi-static and are not strongly coupled as“EM waves,” and EM activities detected in these ranges have a predominantly magnetic or electric nature (heart electric field is many times larger than heart magnetic field, see
Bioelectromagnetism
, R. Plonsey et al., Oxford University Press (1995)) as discussed in D. O. Carpenter,
Biological Effects of EM Fields
, Academic Press (1994). Normal neuron or cardiac activity aberrations, such as strokes/heart attacks, create a temporary or permanent depolarization resulting in loss of polarization and an inability to repolarize. The heart's resultant polarization electric field distribution pattern has a high degree of spatial non-uniformity and can be characterized as a moving dipolar charge distribution pattern during each heartbeat. The human heart electric field pattern is unique and is thus able to be detected.
Traditionally, inanimate dielectrics have been found to exhibit three main and one rare polarization modes (electronic, atomic, orientation and the rare nomadic) as discussed in
Properties of Polymers
, D. W. van Krevelen, Elsevier Publ. (1976); A. R. von Hippel,
Dielectrics and Waves
, John Wiley and Sons (1954);
Dielectric Materials & Applications
, A. R. von Hippel (ed) John Wiley (1954); H. A. Pohl,
Dielectrophoresis
, Cambridge University Press (1978). These modes lead addivtively in the sequence given as one goes from UHF (10
18
Hz) to ULF (3 to 30 Hz) to sub-ULF (0 to 3 Hz) dielectric constraints of 1.0 for air to 78 for water with essentially all plastics in a 3 (PVC) to 14 (Bakelite) range. There are rare outriders like the solvent NMMA at 191, Se at 1×10
3
and ferroelectric BaTiO
3
and rare nomadic polymers (CS
2
)×at 2×10
4
and PAQR carbazole at 3 ×10
5
.
Mammalian physiology results for the ULF dielectric constants of mammalian (human) living tissues, wherein mammalian (human) tissues are 70% volume water (dielectric constant
78
), show that all the ordinary animate human tissues, like heart, brain, liver, heart, blood, skin, lung and even bone, have quite extraordinarily high ULF dielectric constants (10
5
to 10
7
), found only very rarely in usual inanimate dielectric materials. See
Biomedical Engineering Handbook
, J. D. Bronzino (ed.), CRC Press (1995);
Physical Properties of Tissue
, F. A. Duck, Academic Press (1990); H. P. Schwan,
Advances in Biological and Medical Physics
, 5, 148 to 206 (1957); E. Grant,
Dielectric Behaviour of Biological Molecules
, Oxford Univ. (1978) and
Handbook of Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields
, 2nd Ed., C. Polk et al., CRC Press (1996). It is also found that as the animate tissues die these extraordinarily high ULF dielectric constants collapse downward greatly to more normal inanimate values over time as the dying tissue becomes, over time, inanimate. The reason for the great differences is the routine occurrence of other polarization modes in animate materials, but which occur very rarely in inanimate materials. These other polarization modes are interfacial (inhomogeneous materials) and pre-polarized elements which occur readily in all animate tissues. It is known that the rest state of the human neural, cardiac, skeletal muscular and sensory systems are states of high polarization and are induced via ion (K
+
, Na
+
, Ca
++
, etc.) transport across various membranes. Action potentials from this transport are used to maintain the systems' normal polarized state and to trigger the systems' activities via depolarization and follow-up rapid repolarization signals.
Dielectrophoresis has been practiced mostly using exclusively artificially-set-up external non-uniform electric field patterns in laboratories to dielectrically separate individual (&mgr;m size) inanimate, inorganic particles or &mgr;m size living cells (see, H. A. Pohl,
Dielectrophoresis
, Cambridge University Press (1978) and H. A. Pohl,
Electrostatics and
DKL International, Inc.
Nixon & Vanderhye P.C.
Tong Nina
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