US 12,251,259 B2
Acoustic orthopedic tracking system and methods
Dustin Kruse, Grand Island, NY (US); Evan Freiburg, San Diego, CA (US); and James J. Hayes, San Diego, CA (US)
Assigned to DECISION SCIENCES MEDICAL COMPANY, LLC, Poway, CA (US)
Filed by Decision Sciences Medical Company, LLC, Poway, CA (US)
Filed on Jul. 27, 2023, as Appl. No. 18/360,699.
Application 16/578,769 is a division of application No. 15/289,013, filed on Oct. 7, 2016, granted, now 10,426,429, issued on Oct. 1, 2019.
Application 18/360,699 is a continuation of application No. 16/578,769, filed on Sep. 23, 2019, granted, now 11,737,726.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/239,169, filed on Oct. 8, 2015.
Prior Publication US 2024/0090867 A1, Mar. 21, 2024
Int. Cl. A61B 8/08 (2006.01); A61B 8/00 (2006.01); A61B 34/20 (2016.01); G01S 7/52 (2006.01); G01S 15/89 (2006.01); A61B 8/14 (2006.01); A61B 8/15 (2006.01); A61B 34/10 (2016.01); A61B 90/00 (2016.01)
CPC A61B 8/0875 (2013.01) [A61B 8/085 (2013.01); A61B 8/4227 (2013.01); A61B 8/4477 (2013.01); A61B 8/5223 (2013.01); A61B 34/20 (2016.02); G01S 7/5202 (2013.01); G01S 15/8922 (2013.01); G01S 15/899 (2013.01); G01S 15/8997 (2013.01); A61B 8/14 (2013.01); A61B 8/15 (2013.01); A61B 8/4263 (2013.01); A61B 8/4281 (2013.01); A61B 8/4422 (2013.01); A61B 8/4455 (2013.01); A61B 8/4472 (2013.01); A61B 8/4494 (2013.01); A61B 2034/105 (2016.02); A61B 2034/2048 (2016.02); A61B 2034/2051 (2016.02); A61B 2090/378 (2016.02); G01S 15/8959 (2013.01)] 21 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An acoustic orthopedic tracking device, comprising:
an acoustic probe including a support frame having a curved shape to interface a body part of a biological subject, and an array of transducer elements arranged on the curved support frame and operable to transmit acoustic waveforms toward a target volume of an orthopedic structure in the body part and to receive acoustic echoes that return from at least part of the target volume of the orthopedic structure;
an acoustic coupling medium coupled to the array of transducer elements and operable to conduct the acoustic waveforms between the transducer elements and the body part of the biological subject when in contact with the acoustic coupling medium; and
a signal generation and processing unit in communication with the transducer elements and structured to include a housing, a transmit and receive electronics (TRE) unit disposed in the housing, and a data processing unit disposed in the housing and including a memory to store data and a processor coupled to the memory to process data, wherein the TRE unit includes a waveform generator in communication with the data processing unit and one or more waveform synthesizers in communication with the waveform generator to generate one or more waveforms according to waveform information provided by the data processing unit via the waveform generator,
wherein the acoustic waveforms correspond to the one or more waveforms generated by the signal generation and processing unit, and the returned acoustic echoes include at least some waveform components corresponding to the transmitted acoustic waveforms,
wherein the data processing unit is configured to process the returned acoustic echoes to produce spatial information corresponding to the acoustic echoes from the orthopedic structure including one or both of soft tissue and bone by identifying specular pattern data associated with the acoustic echoes returned from a tissue-bone interface of the orthopedic structure, and to determine (i) motion of the orthopedic structure of the body and (ii) a location or an orientation, or both, of the orthopedic structure in a six degrees of freedom (6DoF) coordinate space based on the spatial information from the orthopedic structure by quantitatively comparing to sample patterns using positional data of the transducer elements during transmit and receive operations of the acoustic probe.