Surgery – Diagnostic testing
Reexamination Certificate
2001-10-17
2003-09-09
Winakur, Eric F. (Department: 3736)
Surgery
Diagnostic testing
C340S573100, C340S573400, C128S903000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06616607
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to, for example, a state information acquisition system, a state information acquisition apparatus, an attachable terminal apparatus, a state information acquisition method, and a personal characteristics information acquisition system for measuring the motion, posture, action state, and physiological state of a person.
2. Related Art of the Invention
With the entrance into the stage of an aged society, public attention is focused on the nursing care of elderlies. In particular, the nursing care of elderlies of dementia or prowling tendency is considered to be important, and various technology has been proposed in this application. Means of tracking the action of such an elderly person and thereby notifying abnormal action, in case of occurrence, to the person or another person would be useful for the nursing care. Further, in addition to such an elderly person, when the action of a person is measured and analyzed to obtain a behavior pattern, this permits the comfortable control and safe operation of illumination and air conditioning. This is useful in daily life.
In addition to a person, it is useful to measure the action of an animal or a machine. For an animal, such technology can be used in the research on not yet-known mode of life. For a machine, the measurement of state and operation permits efficient and safe running. This is useful in production activities.
In order to understand the action of a human body, it is important to detect “who (or what),” “where,” and “what” of an action. For the purpose of this, it is necessary to (1) identify a person, (2) detect the position in a room, and (3) detect the action and the posture.
For the first issue of identifying a person, available methods include a method using RF-ID and a method by image recognition of CCD image.
The RF-ID is a system in which the identification information of a tag (called also a transponder, elsewhere) attached to a moving body such as human body and article is recognized automatically when an antenna (called also a reader, elsewhere) connected to a computer receives a radio wave of specific frequency.
These systems are classified into two categories from the viewpoint of the tag reading distance. The first category is the short distance type using lower frequencies in which the reading distance between the tag and the antenna is approximately 50 cm or less. In such a system, for example, a tag is exposed closely to an antenna, a tag is sewn into the end of a trouser leg, or a tag is read by an antenna located in a floor. The second category is the long distance type using microwaves in which the reading distance between the tag and the antenna exceeds 1 m. In such a system, it is sufficient for a tag to be carried with a human body or article. The tag information is read out without any intentional action when the tag passes by an antenna.
In the method by image recognition of CCD image, a human body or article passing through an entrance is shot by a CCD camera. Then, characteristic quantities such as the face of the human body and the shape and a mark of the article are extracted by means of image recognition, and compared with proper characteristic quantities previously registered, whereby the person or article is identified.
For the second issue of specifying the position of a human body or article in a room, available methods include extraction from CCD image and extraction from temperature distribution information obtained by a two-dimensional infra-red sensor. In addition, in case of a very large building, a method using a PHS or the like is proposed in which approximate position is specified on the basis of the intensity of the radio waves from a plurality of base station.
For the third issue of detecting the action and the posture, proposed methods include an old-fashioned method using a pedometer, a mercury switch, or the like to determine a static state or an acting state. Proposed recently is a method of detecting the state of walking, the inclination of body, and the direction of walking using various acceleration sensors and gyrosensors (angular velocity sensors) of high performance.
Further, in order to detect the physiological state of a human body, a ring sensor for detecting the light transmitting through a finger and a necklace sensor for detecting the vibration of heartbeat have been developed recently. These sensors contact the human body and detect the transmission and the vibration, thereby detecting the pulse and the like of the human body.
Nevertheless, each of these previously proposed various methods of detecting “who (or what),” “where,” and “what” of an action has only a single function as described above.
(A) Accordingly, there has been the problem that the action, posture, and action state of a person such as “who (or what),” “where,” and “what” of the action do not provide, at least directly, any information on the physiological state of the person.
Further, there has been the problem that it is difficult to obtain detailed information on the state of a person from the information obtained by any above-mentioned single function without obtaining the physiological information of the person.
(B) The RF-ID permits the identification of a specific person or article entering a room. Nevertheless, when a plurality of persons or articles enter the room, it is not possible to determine “who (or what)” exists “where,” even using a method of specifying the position of the human bodies or articles. Further, even when the posture or the like is detected using an acceleration sensor, this does not provide any information on the position of the person in the posture.
Among the RF-ID systems for identifying a specific person or article, in the short distance type, the communication distance between the tag and the antenna is short. This has caused the necessity of explicitly exposing the tag to the antenna. On the contrary, in the long distance type, the communication distance between the tag and the antenna is long. This has caused the problem that a person or article not passing through but passing by the entrance can be detected in error. Further, the method of identifying a specific person or article from a CCD image needs extraction of characteristic quantities from the image. This has caused the problem that when the face is unseen at night or due to an obstacle, the human body is not detected at all.
(C) Further, in the method of receiving the sensor signals from the ring sensor, the necklace sensor, or the like, there have been the problems of a higher noise level, the large amount of data, and the like.
(D) Further, in this system, the action state of “who,” “where,” and “what” is obtained accurately. Nevertheless, for example, in case that the home of the person of object of detection of action state is far from a hospital, the doctor in the hospital can not automatically obtain the action state of the person of object of detection. Accordingly, there has been the problem that even in case of the occurrence or the possible occurrence of abnormality in the person of object of detection, the doctor can not give any advice such as treatment information to the person of object of detection or the person's helper.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been devised with considering these problems in the prior art. An object of the present invention is to provide a state information acquisition system, a state information acquisition apparatus, an attachable terminal apparatus, a state information acquisition method, a personal characteristics information acquisition system, a medium, and an informational set for directly obtaining the physiological state of a person. Further, considering the above-mentioned problems in the prior art, an object of the present invention is to provide a state information acquisition system, a state information acquisition apparatus, an attachable terminal apparatus, a state information acquisition method, a personal characteristics information ac
Hashimoto Kazuhiko
Inoue Shigeyuki
Tanaka Shinji
Yoshiike Nobuyuki
Matsushita Electric - Industrial Co., Ltd.
McCrosky David J.
RatnerPrestia
Winakur Eric F.
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