Patent · US Expired

Substance characteristic measuring method and substance characteristic measuring instrument

US6854331B2 · kind B2 · utility

6Cited by
2References
4Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventor

Key dates

Filing dateMar 19, 2002
Grant dateFeb 15, 2005
Priority date
Expiry dateMar 19, 2022

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG01N2291/02827
  • WIPO fieldMedical technology
  • WIPO sectorInstruments

Abstract

The present invention facilitates measurement of characteristic values corresponding to hardness of a material to be measured inside a living body using the response of a vibration transmission characteristic without the need to remove other tissue materials of the living body by dissecting or opening the abdomen of the living body. The present invention includes a sensor (12) made up of a transmitter and a receiver, frequency component analysis section (14) for the incident wave and reflected wave, a frequency/phase difference specification section (15) for comparing the spectral distribution of the incident wave with the spectral distribution of the reflected wave and specifying a phase difference θx, which is a difference between the phase of the incident wave and the phase of the reflected wave at each frequency fx, and a phase difference compensating operation section (16) that inputs the frequency fx and phase difference θx, performs compensating operations using a reference transmission characteristic curve which has been obtained as a reference beforehand and obtains a frequency variation df when the input phase difference θx is reduced to zero, and is characterized in that…

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.