Patent Application
20130003502
The invention relates to configurable ultrasound Doppler measurements using mobile devices.
There are many usage models for Ultrasound Doppler technology such as the ability to find the location and velocity of a target object, monitoring a baby's heartbeat in utero, or measuring the thickness of an object. Devices capable of performing these usages are generally unique and focused on a specific application.
Smartphones and other similar mobile computing devices have become the predominant technological devices that people carry around with them to perform a wide variety of tasks, such as making phone calls, sending emails, taking pictures, and surfing the web while on the go. With each successive wave of mobile computing devices that are introduced, more functionality continues to be integrated to allow the smartphones/devices to perform an ever-increasing array of tasks.
The present invention is illustrated by way of example and is not limited by the drawings, in which like references indicate similar elements, and in which:
Merging Ultrasound Doppler technology into a mobile computing device creates a new area of functionality for smartphones, tablets, and other mobile computing devices. Below, embodiments of a mobile computing device with integrated and configurable ultrasound Doppler technology are disclosed.
A mobile computing device 100 may comprise a cellular phone (such as a smartphone), a tablet computing device, a netbook computing device, a laptop computing device, or any one of many other types of mobile computing devices. Details of at least some of these described mobile computing devices are shown in
Other applications may be utilized and can be customized for an individual use by changing the Doppler wave frequency as well as the power level used for emission purposes. This dynamic modification of both emission frequency and power will allow a smartphone or other mobile computing device with this technology to configure the device for the intended purpose at any point in time. The usages for a given mobile computing device may be always enabled for user configuration or they may be disabled at the purchase of the mobile computing device and certain frequency and power emission ranges may be unlocked through the use of a network-based mobile store. For example, the ultrasound capabilities may be purchased all at once to allow for full configuration of frequency and power ranges or a given frequency/power combination may be purchased separately to allow for the ultrasound Doppler technology in the mobile computing device to be utilized specifically for a single application (e.g. object thickness measurement).
Embodiment 204 shows a laptop with an integrated ultrasound Doppler analog transceiver. Embodiment 206 shows a smartphone/tablet with a discrete analog transceiver that is at the end of a wire, where the other end of the wire includes a plug that plugs into a receptacle on the smartphone/tablet. The male/female plug receptacle may be utilizing any interface that is compatible with both the phone and the discrete wired analog transceiver. For example, the plug interface may be a Universal Serial Bus (USB) or USB 2 standard interface if the analog transceiver at the other end of the wire also includes analog-to-digital (A-to-D) conversion logic), it may be a mini headphone jack interface, or it may be any other compatible interface that would allow communication between the analog transceiver and the mobile computing device.
Embodiment 206 shows a laptop with a discrete analog transceiver that is at the end of a wire.
In other embodiments that are not shown, the discrete analog transceiver may not have a plug and wire interface, but it rather attached to a portion of the case of a smartphone/tablet/laptop/etc. through a plug or slot without the wire. In other words, the discrete analog transceiver may be firmly attached to the edge of the smartphone/tablet/laptop/etc. case through the use of a latching, buckling or other secure attaching mechanism rather than attached through a bendable wire.
In
The cores 302 operate upon instructions that are stored, at different times, in several locations. Although the instructions are eventually brought into the instruction cache(s) in each core, they are brought in through a shared cache 306, which pulls instructions and data from a general memory, such as volatile memory 308. A memory request from a core is routed through a memory controller 310, which schedules read and write requests to the memory 308.
In some embodiments, volatile memory 308 may be a form of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), such as double data rate (DDR) synchronous DRAM. In other embodiments that are not shown, memory 308 may not be volatile, but rather persistent, such as a type of flash memory or phase change memory (PCM).
Additionally, in some embodiments, the SoC includes a graphics controller 312 to allow the display of graphics information on a display device (the display device is not shown). The graphics controller 312 may reserve a section of volatile memory 308 for storage of graphics information such as textures, vertices, and frame buffers. In these embodiments, the graphics controller 312 may coordinate with the memory controller 310 to send and receive graphics information with the volatile memory 308. In other embodiments that are not shown, the graphics controller 312 may have reserved a completely separate memory for use exclusively for graphics information storage.
The SoC also includes input/output (I/O) control logic 314 to coordinate communication between the other SoC 300 logic, such as the core(s) 302, and any I/O logic internal or external to the SoC 300. For example, I/O control logic 314 may include a USB controller to allow communication between any USB peripheral devices coupled to (e.g., plugged into) the SoC 300 through an I/O interface. Thus, peripheral device 316 may be a USB device plugged into the SoC 300 through a USB plug interface and I/O control logic 314 may include USB logic to translate USB communication packets being received from the peripheral device 316 into native information able to be understood by the core(s) 302. Although the USB protocol is being utilized as the example, another peripheral device utilizing a different protocol also may be communicatively coupled through I/O control logic 314 to the rest of the logic within the SoC 300.
In many embodiments, one peripheral subsystem coupled to SoC 300 logic through I/O control logic 314 is ultrasound front-end transceiver logic (UFETL) 318.
The UFETL 318 includes analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog (A/D and D/A) conversion logic 320, an oscillator module 322, a bypass filter 324, and an amplifier 326.
In a third embodiment that is not shown, a portion of the UFETL 318 may be integrated into the SoC 300 and another portion may be discrete from the SoC 300.
The UFETL 318 comprises a hardware module that has the capability of generating an ultrasound frequency, transmitting the ultrasound frequency sound wave, and receiving the ultrasound frequency sound wave. In many embodiments, the general purpose of sending and receiving the ultrasound frequency sound wave is to perform one or more measurements based on the sound wave characteristics as it is first transmitted and later received.
The UFETL 318 may receive commands from the core(s) 302 through I/O control 314 to generate a certain type of ultrasound frequency sound wave. The characteristics of the wave may be determined by a software interface 336 being executed by the core(s) 302. The software interface 336 may have the capability to fine tune the UFETL 318 for the type of ultrasound frequency sound wave to be utilized. Details regarding an embodiment of a software interface 336 capable of performing these tasks is discussed in detail below in regard to
Returning to
In many embodiments, the generated ultrasound emission frequency is passed to an ultrasound analog output device 328, which emits the ultrasound frequency sound wave into the air or through another medium (e.g., water, wood, metal, human body, etc.). In different embodiments, the ultrasound analog output device 328 may be integrated into the computing device housing the UFETL 318 or connected to the computing device through an external plug/cable (
Ultrasound applications are varied in use and different applications do not just utilize a range of different frequencies, but they also utilize various levels of power for the emission. Thus, the UFETL 318 includes the ability to manage the power level of the emission through power management logic 330, which is coupled to a power line input 332. For example, the power management logic 330 may dictate the power level of the ultrasound emission frequency through a voltage regulator or another similar power regulation device. The power line input 332 may come from a voltage rail tied to a specific power plane on a motherboard (not pictured) or other type of printed circuit board or other board that includes power delivery lines to distribute power from a power source such as a 110V AC outlet or a battery to the components within the computing device housing the UFETL 318.
After the ultrasound frequency sound wave is emitted from the ultrasound analog output device 328, the wave travels through a medium to one or more objects, bounces off of the one or more objects and travels back to the computing device. The returning ultrasound frequency sound wave is received by the ultrasound analog input 334, which passes the wave in analog format to input amplifier 326. The amplifier amplifies the ultrasound wave. Unfortunately, it is quite likely that other frequency sound waves were also picked up by the ultrasound analog input 334. Thus, after the ultrasound wave is amplified to more easily detect the wave details, the results are passed through a bypass filter 324. The bypass filter removes all unwanted sound wave frequencies from the input and allows only the frequency in question to pass through to the A/D converter 320. The A/D converter converts the wave information to digital format and the digital information is then passed through the I/O control 314 back to the core(s) 302 to be stored and/or utilized by an ultrasound software interface 336 for display on a display device 338 or otherwise.
Returning to the software interface capable of configuring, using, and monitoring ultrasound frequency generation hardware logic, such as the UEFTL 318,
The software interface may include settings for custom applications 400 and settings for automatic applications. Although not shown, the automatic application settings 402 may give you several choices of applications, such as using the ultrasound Doppler logic as a heart monitor or a velocity measurement, but it may use pre-determined settings. So you may select the application and the software interface then gives you a pre-determined frequency setting and a predetermined power setting.
Regarding custom application settings 400, the software interface could allow you to name the application and/or select from a list of applications from drop down box 404. Then after selecting the name of the application the ultrasound Doppler logic will be used for, you could then type in the frequency you would like the ultrasound frequency to be set to at frequency setting 406 (e.g., 40 KHz). Then the software interface may give you the ability to set the power utilized for the ultrasound wave emission application in a power setting feature 408. The power setting feature may include several settings with a readout (not shown) that displays the specific number of Watts utilized to power the emission, which would correlate to a strength of the wave being emitted.
After selecting the custom settings, the software interface may allow saving (410) the specific frequency and power settings to go along with the application as named or similarly, to reset the settings to a generic value, the software interface may allow cancelling (412) the custom settings that were entered into the device.
Additionally, there may be safety measures associated with the software interface, such as a case where the ultrasound wave emission logic is in a cell phone and the software interface may terminate cell phone usage/frequency emissions when set to utilize the ultrasound device for a baby heart rate monitor.
In custom application settings 400, new applications may be created that are utilized for specific situations outside of the standard applications with auto settings. Additionally, custom application settings 400 can tweak a frequency or power setting in case the application is not coming up with good measurement results due to environmental factors or otherwise.
Furthermore, although not shown, the software interface may also allow for saving of data as a result of the use of an ultrasound frequency measurement.
Finally, the software interface may also allow for the customization of the data retrieved, such as additional parameters like time stamps of waves sent and received, scale of display of frequencies values shown, etc.
The process begins with processing logic loading an ultrasound measurement software interface for execution (processing block 500). In some embodiments, the loading process may include loading a set of instructions that comprises the software interface into a memory in a computing device (e.g., into volatile memory 308 in
Next, processing logic will receive ultrasound frequency and power settings (processing block 502) to set the parameters for the emission of the ultrasound wave. The frequency and power settings may be retrieved from storage as a predetermined default frequency and power setting. Otherwise, the software interface may prompt a user to select a type of ultrasound application to utilize and either with pre-determined default settings per application or customized settings, the software interface will set the frequency and power settings for the emission process.
Then, an oscillation/emission module in the computing device and will cause the oscillation/emission module to emit the ultrasound wave (processing block 504) using the frequency and power settings determined in block 502. This emission can last for a certain length of time. The length of time determines the number of waves sent and may be a predetermined factor depending on the application the ultrasound wave is being used for measurement. For example, one ultrasound wave may be sent or multiple waves may be sent depending on the application. In other embodiments, the length of time the ultrasound wave emission lasts can be customized in the software interface.
A certain amount of time after the ultrasound wave emission in block 504, receiver and amplifier module(s) will receive and amplify the ultrasound wave (processing block 506). Once amplified, a filter module filters out non-selected sound wave frequencies received from the receiver module to isolate the selected ultrasound wave frequency that was received (processing block 508). The filtering process cancels noise to show clear reception of the ultrasound frequency in question.
Next, processing logic and analog-to-digital conversion logic will calculate and translate the ultrasound frequency results data measurement from the received ultrasound wave (processing block 510). This calculation/translation process will convert the analog signal to a digital counterpart, it may also measure the magnitude of the wave, include a time stamp with the wave, and potentially create textual or graphical data results ready for display.
Finally, processing logic will display the results data measurement, formatted by the calculation/translation process, on a display device (processing block 512). For example, if the processing logic resides within a mobile cellular phone, the display process may display the results of the ultrasound wave measurement on the phone's graphical display screen. The format of what is displayed may be in a default configuration or customized by a user.
After the measurement has been completed, the process may either end or start again to receive the ultrasound frequency and power settings at block 502. For a second time through the process flow, the user may elect to take the same measurement a second time or use the ultrasound Doppler measurement logic for a completely different type of measurement. For example, the user may first measure the speed of a baseball and then measure the thickness of a baseball bat. On the other hand, if the measurement does not yield accurate results, the user may want to measure the speed of a baseball several times and fine tune the frequency and power settings to get more accurate readings/measurements.
Elements of embodiments of the present invention may also be provided as a non-transient machine-readable medium for storing the machine-executable instructions. The machine-readable medium may include, but is not limited to, flash memory, optical disks, compact disks-read only memory (CD-ROM), digital versatile/video disks (DVD) ROM, random access memory (RAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), magnetic or optical cards, propagation media or other type of non-transient machine-readable media suitable for storing electronic instructions.
In the description above and in the claims, the terms “include” and “comprise,” along with their derivatives, may be used, and are intended to be treated as synonyms for each other. In addition, in the following description and claims, the terms “coupled” and “connected,” along with their derivatives may be used. It should be understood that these terms are not intended as synonyms for each other. Rather, in particular embodiments, “connected” may be used to indicate that two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact with each other. “Coupled” may mean that two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact. However, “coupled” may also mean that two or more elements are not in direct contact with each other, but yet still cooperate, interact, or communicate with each other.
In the description above, certain terminology is used to describe embodiments of the invention. For example, the term “logic” is representative of hardware, firmware, software (or any combination thereof) to perform one or more functions. For instance, examples of “hardware” include, but are not limited to, an integrated circuit, a finite state machine, or even combinatorial logic. The integrated circuit may take the form of a processor such as a microprocessor, an application specific integrated circuit, a digital signal processor, a micro-controller, or the like.
It should be appreciated that reference throughout this specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” means that a particular feature, structure or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention. Therefore, it is emphasized and should be appreciated that two or more references to “an embodiment” or “one embodiment” or “an alternative embodiment” in various portions of this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment. Furthermore, the particular features, structures or characteristics may be combined as suitable in one or more embodiments of the invention.
Similarly, it should be appreciated that in the foregoing description of embodiments of the invention, various features are sometimes grouped together in a single embodiment, figure, or description thereof for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure aiding in the understanding of one or more of the various inventive aspects. This method of disclosure, however, is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed subject matter requires more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive aspects lie in less than all features of a single foregoing disclosed embodiment. Thus, the claims following the detailed description are hereby expressly incorporated into this detailed description.
