Mobile digital communication computing device including heart rate monitor
Patent ReferencesPocket-size electronic cuffless blood pressure and pulse rate calculator with optional temperature indicator, timer and memory Apparatus for measuring the actual psychophysiological condition Physical exercise aid Wrist worn heart rate monitor Body-held monitoring device for physical condition Personal computer card for collection for real-time biological data Apparatus and method for continuous electronic monitoring and tracking of individuals Physiological monitor and associated computation, display and communication unit Patent #: 6790178 InventorApplicationNo. 11108153 filed on 04/15/2005US Classes:455/66.1, Having diverse art device455/575.1, Housing or support455/90.1, Having particular application (e.g., avalanche victim assistance) of a transceiver455/100, Body attached or connected455/566, Having display455/128, With casing or housing455/351, Transportable600/509, Detecting heartbeat electric signal600/513, Detecting heartbeat electric signal and diverse cardiovascular characteristic600/519Detecting signal repetition rateExaminersPrimary: Sobutka, Philip J.Attorney, Agent or FirmInternational ClassH04B 7/00DescriptionBACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to the fields of mobile communication and/or computing devices. More specifically, the present invention relates to the incorporation of bio-metric sensors/monitors in these devices. 2. Background Information Advances in computer and telecommunication technology have led to wide spread adoption of mobile client devices, from the basic wireless telephones to function rich notebook sized computers that pack the power of a desktop computer. In betweenare web enabled wireless telephones, palmed sized personal digital assistants (PDA) and so forth. As a result, professionals are virtually always only a few clicks or buttons away from their home offices. While these capabilities have increased the mobility of modern professionals, they also have contributed to longer work hours and increased stress for the professionals. However, as society in general becomes more health conscious,notwithstanding their busy work schedules, more and more professionals are allocating time to exercise or participate in physical activities. This trend has not gone unnoticed to the application developers, which as a result have become increasinglyinterested in incorporating bio-metric data in their applications. Among the modern mobile client devices, unquestionably, wireless mobiles and palm sized PDAs have emerged as the two most popular mobile client devices for modern professionals. Thus, increasingly, artesian are interested in being able tocollect bio-metric data using these devices. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A mobile client device, such as a wireless mobile phone or a palm sized personal digital assistant, is provided with a number of sensors and companion programming instructions/circuitry to generate a heart rate reading for a user holding thedevice. The sensors are used to sense blood flow rate of the user. The sensors are advantageously disposed in a distributed manner, in a number of locations of the mobile client device, to allow collection of multiple blood flow rate readings of theuser. The programming instructions/circuitry are used to infer a holding pattern of the device, and generate the heart rate reading using a subset of the sensed data, based at least in part on the inferred holding pattern. In one embodiment, the sensors are distributively disposed along two edges of the mobile client device, to facilitate collection of blood flow rate data for at least a left hand holding pattern and a right hand holding pattern. In oneembodiment, the holding pattern is inferred by comparing the sensed data with one or more reference characteristic profiles. In one embodiment, a set of weights is also selected to normalize the employed sensed data. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OFDRAWINGS The present invention will be described by way of exemplary embodiments, but not limitations, illustrated in the accompanying drawings in which like references denote similar elements, and in which: FIG. 1 illustrates a front view of a wireless mobile phone incorporated with heart rate sensors in accordance with one embodiment; FIG. 2 illustrates a front view of a palm sized PDA incorporated with heart rate sensors in accordance with another embodiment; FIG. 3 illustrates an architectural view of the wireless mobile phone and the PDA of FIG. 1-2, in accordance with one embodiment; FIGS. 4-5 illustrate the operational flow of the relevant aspects of the heart rate application of FIG. 3, in accordance with one embodiment; FIG. 6 illustrates an example data structure suitable for use to store the weight data associated with generating the heart rate for practicing the present invention, in accordance with one embodiment; and FIG. 7 illustrates a block diagram view of a circuit suitable for use to practice the present invention, in accordance with one embodiment. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION In the following description, various aspects of the present invention will be described. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced with only some or all aspects of the presentinvention. For purposes of explanation, specific numbers, materials and configurations are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. However, it will also be apparent to one skilled in the art that the presentinvention may be practiced without the specific details. In other instances, well known features are omitted or simplified in order not to obscure the present invention. Parts of the description will be presented using terms such as end-users interfaces, buttons, and so forth, commonly employed by those skilled in the art to convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. Parts of thedescription will be presented in terms of operations performed by a computing device, using terms such as sensing, converting, comparing, storing, generating and so forth. As well understood by those skilled in the art, these quantities and operationstake the form of electrical, magnetic, or optical signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, and otherwise manipulated through mechanical and electrical components of a digital system. The term digital system includes general purpose aswell as special purpose computing machines, systems, and the like, that are standalone, adjunct or embedded. Various operations will be described in turn in a manner that is most helpful in understanding the present invention, however, the order of description should not be construed as to imply that these operations are necessarily order dependent. Furthermore, the phrase "in one embodiment" will be used repeatedly, however the phrase does not necessarily refer to the same embodiment, although it may. Referring now to FIG. 1, wherein a front view of a wireless mobile phone, incorporated with the teachings of the present invention, in accordance with one embodiment, is shown. As illustrated, similar to a conventional wireless mobile phone,wireless mobile phone 100 includes key pad 102, "talk" and "end talk" buttons 104, cursor control buttons 106, display screen 108 and antenna 112. However, unlike prior art wireless mobile phones, wireless mobile phone 100 is equipped with a number ofsensors 114aa-114ae and 114ba-114be to sense a number of blood flow rate readings of a user holding wireless mobile phone 100. Wireless mobile phone 100 is also provided with either companion programming instructions or circuitry (or combination thereofto generate a heart rate reading for the user using the data sensed by sensors 114aa-114ae and 114ba-114be. In accordance with the present invention, sensors 114aa-114ae and 114ba--114be are advantageously disposed in a distributed manner, at a number of locations of wireless mobile phone 100. For the illustrated embodiments, sensors 114aa-114ae and114ba-114be are distributively disposed along the two side edges of wireless mobile phone 100. As a result, the blood flow rate of the user may be sensed at multiple points, more importantly, at different combinations of these points, depending one howmobile phone 100 is held by the user. For example, if mobile phone 100 is held in a left hand position, the user's thumb and the lower left region of the user's palm are more likely to be in contact with sensors 114aa, 114ad and 114ae, giving three reasonably accurate readings of theuser's blood flow rate, while sensors 114ab and 114ac most likely will not make very good contact with the user's palm or fingers, yielding unreliable readings of the user's blood flow rate. At the same time, the user's remaining four fingers are morelikely to be in contact with sensors 114ba-114bd, yielding reliable readings, with sensor 114be most likely not making very good contact with the user's palm or fingers, yielding unreliable readings. On the other hand, if mobile phone 100 is held in aright hand position, the user's thumb and the lower right region of the user's palm are more likely to be in contact with sensors 114ba, 114bd and 114be, yielding more reliable readings, with sensors 114bb and 114bc most likely not making very goodcontact with the user's palm or fingers, yielding unreliable readings. At the same time, the user's remaining four fingers are more likely to be in contact with sensors 114aa-114ad, yielding reliable readings, with sensor 114ae most likely not makingvery good contact with the user's palm or fingers, yielding unreliable readings. Thus, it can be seen, a user holding pattern (of the mobile phone 100) can be inferred from the relative strength of the sensing signals generated by the distributively disposed sensors 114aa-114ae and 114ba-114be. The companion programminginstructions/circuitry are designed to do just that, i.e. infer the holding pattern based on the relative strength of the sensing signals. In one embodiment, the companion programming instructions/circuitry make the inference using referencecharacteristic profiles, to be described more fully below. In turn, the companion programming instructions/circuitry generate the heart rate reading using a subset of the sensing data, based at least in part on the inferred holding pattern. In oneembodiment, the employed sensed data are also "normalized" to reflect the different strength a user may employ in holding mobile phone 100. For the illustrated embodiment, mobile phone 100 also includes a dedicated service request button 110 to allow the roving user to request for services from different locations or have location information of the user be selectively providing tovarious recipients. Requesting for service by a roving user is the subject of co-pending U.S. Patent Application, <number to be assigned>, entitled "Method and Apparatus for Roving Request for Service", filed contemporaneously, and having atleast partial common inventorship with the present application. Selective provision of location information of the user to various recipients is the subject matter of co-pending U.S. Patent Application, <number to be assigned>, entitled "Methodand Apparatus for People to Simply Communicate Their Location and Activity, also filed contemporaneously, and having at least partial common inventorship with the present application. Except for the recursive incorporation, both of these applicationsare hereby fully incorporated by reference. FIG. 2 illustrates a front view of a palm sized PDA, incorporated with the teachings of the present invention, in accordance with one embodiment. As illustrated, similar to a conventional PDA, PDA 200 includes display screen 202, functionbuttons 204, and antenna 206. However, unlike prior art PDA, but similar to wireless mobile phone 100, PDA 200 is equipped with a number of sensors 208aa-208ae and 208ba--208be to sense the blood flow rate of a user holding PDA 200. Also similar towireless mobile phone 100, PDA 200 is also provided with either programming instructions or circuitry (or combination thereof) to generate a heart rate reading for the user, using the data sensed by sensors 208aa-208ae and 208ba-208be. As wireless mobile phone 100, sensors 208aa-208ae and 208ba-208be are advantageously disposed in a distributed manner, at a number of locations of PDA 200. For the illustrated embodiments, sensors 208aa-208ae and 208ba-208be are distributivelydisposed along the two side edges of PDA 200. As a result, the blood flow rate of the user may also be sensed at multiple points, more importantly, at different combinations of these points, depending on how PDA 200 is held by the user. As describedearlier, the companion programming instructions/circuitry are designed to infer the holding pattern based on the relative strength of the sensing signals. In turn, the companion programming instructions/circuitry generate the heart rate reading using asubset of the sensing data, based at least in part on the inferred holding pattern. Similar to mobile phone 100, PDA 200 may be equipped with a roving request for service application or a location information distribution application. If so, a service request or location information distribution "home" page may be retrievedfrom a messaging service, and rendered on display screen 202. The service request/location information distribution "home" page may include a "drop down" menu of services available for request, request button, current location and status display. As aresult, a user of PDA 200 may also request anyone of the services included in the "drop down" menu, such as calling a taxi, ordering a take out, buying some local wines, and the like, or request the user's current location information being provided to anumber of selected recipients, such as the user's parent, friends, and so forth, as described in the co-pending incorporated by reference application. FIG. 3 illustrates an architecture view of a mobile client device 300, which is intended to be representative of mobile phone 100 and PDA 200, in accordance with one embodiment. As illustrated, mobile client device 300 includes elements found inconventional mobile client devices, such as micro-controller/processor 302, digital signal processor (DSP) 304, non-volatile memory 306, general purpose input/output (GPIO) interface 308, and transmit/receive (TX/RX) 312. For the illustrated embodiment,mobile client device 300 also advantageously includes geographic positioning system 310, which is equipped to provide a user of mobile client device 300 his/her current location. [However, the provision of GPS 310, which desirable, is not essential tothe practice of the present invention.] Further, mobile client device 300 is provided with sensors 318 (representative of earlier described sensors 114aa-114ae and 114ba-114be and sensors 208aa-208ae and 208ba-208be), A/D converter 316, and heart rateapplication 320 incorporated with the teachings of the present invention. Selected ones of sensors 318 (depending a user's holding pattern) make contact with the user's palm or fingers, and generate electrical signals proportional to the blood flow rate detected by the sensors. Anyone of a number of such known sensorsmay be employed. A/D converter 316 converts the analog electrical signals into digital data. Similarly, anyone of a number of such known A/D converters may be employed. Heart rate application 320 in turn infers the holding pattern, and generate theheart rate accordingly, to be described more fully below. In alternate embodiments, in lieu of heart rate application 320, mobile client device 300 may be provided with dedicated circuitry for performing the holding pattern inference and heart rategeneration operations (also to be described in more details below, referencing FIG. 7). Except for the distributive employment of the sensors, and heart rate generation application 320 (or its circuitry equivalent), the functions and constitution of the various enumerated elements of FIG. 3 are known in the art, accordingly will notbe otherwise further described either. FIG. 4 illustrates the operational flow of the relevant aspects of the heart rate application of the present invention, in a normal mode of operation, in accordance with one embodiment. As illustrated, at block 402, heart rate application 320receives sensing data from the distributively disposed sensors. At block 404, heart rate application 320 examines the received sensing data and infers a holding pattern of the mobile client device. In one embodiment, heart rate application 320 infersat least whether the mobile client device is being held by the user in a left hand or a right hand position. As alluded earlier, in one embodiment, heart rate application 320 makes the determination by comparing the received sensing data against anumber of reference characteristic profiles, depicting the sensing signal characteristics for typical users holding the mobile client device with their left or right hands. [Recall that different sensors are expected to have "lower strength" sensingsignals for different holding patterns.] At block 406, for the illustrated embodiment, heart rate application 320 further loads a set of calibrated weight corresponding to the determined holding pattern to normalize the subset of sensing data to be used(to reflect the different pressures different users may applied to the sensors when holding the mobile client device). [Recall from earlier description that the unused sensing data are the data generated by sensors that are not expected to make goodcontact with the user for the particular holding pattern.] At block 408, heart rate application 320 generates a composite signal, averaging the normalized sensing data. In alternate embodiments, other factors may also be employed to "smooth" the sensingdata. At block 410, heart rate application 320 generates the heart rate reading based on the composite averaged reading (i.e. converting the measured flow rate represented by the signal rate into heart rate). FIG. 5 illustrates the operational flow of the relevant aspects of the heart rate application of the present invention, in a calibration mode of operation, in accordance with one embodiment. At blocks 502-510, heart rate application 320essentially performs the same operations as earlier described for blocks 402-410, when operating in the normal mode, except in block 506, in lieu of loading a calibrated set of weight as in the case of block 406, heart rate application 320 loads aninitial set of "trial" weights. At block 512, heart rate application 320 asks the user to confirm if the generated reading using the "trial" weights to normalize the sensing data appear to be sufficiently accurate. The present invention contemplatesthat the user has a second independent method of learning about the user's heart rate, to allow the user to calibrate the present invention. At block 514, heart rate application 320 determines if the user confirms the computed heart rate using the"trial" weights is "sufficiently" accurate. If it is not, heart rate application 320 fetches another set of "trial" weights, and re-performs blocks 508-512. The process continues until eventually the user confirms that the generated heart rate issufficiently accurate. At such time, heart rate application 320 saves the last set of "trial" weights as the "calibrated" weights for the particular holding pattern. The process may be repeated for different holding patterns. Further, in alternateembodiments, in lieu to loading different sets of "trial" weights, the initial set of "trial" weight may be systematically altered (i.e. increased or deceased) to locate the optimal normalization weights. FIG. 6 illustrates a data structure suitable for use to store the weight data for practicing of the present invention. As illustrated, table 600 includes a number of weight sets for left hand holding patterns 602a and a number of weight sets forright hand holding patterns 602b. Each weight set 602a or 602b, includes a number of weights 604a for left side sensors 114aa-114ae or 208aa-208ae, and a number of weights 604b for right side sensors 114ba-114be or 208ba-208be. In one embodiment, oncecalibrated, the "optimal" weight set identifiers for the left and right hand holding patterns are saved in a working area or alternatively, in a configuration register. FIG. 7 illustrates a block diagram view of an equivalent circuitry suitable for use to practice the present invention, in accordance with one embodiment. Circuitry 700 comprises counters 702a-702b, storage units 704a-704b, comparators 706a-706b,accumulator 708, latches 710a-710c, selector 712 and generator 714, coupled to each other as shown. Counter 702a is used to generate a pointer to storage units 704a to cause storage units 704a to output a reference sensing data characteristic profile. Comparator 706a compares the sensing data to the reference characteristic profile. Accumulator 708 accumulates the differences between the sensing data and reference data. Comparator 706b determines if the accumulated difference is smaller than thepreviously known smallest accumulated difference. If not, after a pre-determined number of clocks, counter 702a advances, causing another reference characteristic profile to be output for analysis. Eventually, after a predetermined number of trials orupon convergence towards a "best fit" reference characteristic profile, the "best" difference is latched into latch 710b, and the identifier of the characteristic profile is latched into latch 710a. Thereafter, in like manner, counter 702b successively generates a series of pointers to cause different weight sets to be successively output for different holding patterns for analysis. Latched identifier of the most "fitting" referencecharacteristic profile causes selector 712 to select the appropriate trial weight sets corresponding to the inferred holding pattern to be examined. The selected trial weight set is then latched and used to normalized the sensing data, and uponnormalization, compute the heart rate. The computed heart rate may then be presented to the user for confirmation. The process may be repeated if necessary. Eventually, upon confirmation, the calibrated weight set may then be used during normal mode of operation. Accordingly, a mobile client device having integrated capabilities for also generating a heart rate reading for a user holding the mobile client device has been described. While the present invention has been described in terms of the aboveillustrated embodiments, those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention is not limited to the embodiments described. The present invention can be practiced with modification and alteration within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. Thus, the description is to be regarded as illustrative instead of restrictive on the present invention. * * * * * Field of SearchHaving diverse art deviceHousing or support Having particular application (e.g., avalanche victim assistance) of a transceiver Having particular configuration (e.g., C.B., or walkie-talkie) of a transceiver Having particular housing or support of a transceiver Body attached or connected With casing or housing Transportable Heart Detecting heartbeat electric signal Testing artificially regulated or assisted heart Fetal heartbeat Orthogonal heartbeat electric signals combined to form vector signal Detecting heartbeat electric signal and diverse cardiovascular characteristic Sound generated by successive heartbeat electric signals to represent heart action Detecting arrhythmia Variation in duration of segment of PQRST signal waveform (e.g., QRS complex, etc.) detected Vertical variation of PQRST signal waveform (e.g., amplitude of QRS complex, etc.) detected Tachycardia or fibrillation detected Detecting signal repetition rate Detecting means associated with exercise machine Detecting R portion of signal waveform Switching means for activating different monitoring systems, signal displays, or signal recorders Signal display or recording Magnetic recording Cathode-ray tube used for display or included in recording means Blood output per beat or time interval Detecting heartbeat by sensing movement of oscillatable body-supporting means Detecting heart sound TELEPHONE TELEMETRY FEEDBACK TO PATIENT OF BIOLOGICAL SIGNAL OTHER THAN BRAIN ELECTRIC SIGNAL |
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