Ultra-low power, miniaturized electronic systems for monitoring physical parameters with wireless communication capabilities and applications of same

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11666240-B2
Application number	US-202017417180-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 3, 2020
Priority date	Jan 3, 2019
Publication date	Jun 6, 2023
Grant date	Jun 6, 2023

Abstract

An electronic system for monitoring a physical parameter includes an ADM comprising an accumulation mode sensor for measuring the physical parameter by generating electrical energy associated with the physical parameter in response to a surrounding condition, and an energy storing device coupled to the accumulation mode sensor for accumulatively storing the generated electrical energy; a power source; and an SoC coupling with the ADM and the power source, configured such that the stored electrical energy is monitored, and when the stored electrical energy is equal to or greater than a pre-defined threshold, a wake-up event is generated to trigger the SoC to operates in a run mode in which the physical parameter is wirelessly transmitted to a receiver and the stored electrical energy in the energy storing device is discharged, and then the SoC returns to a sleep mode in which a minimal power is consumed.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An electronic system for monitoring a physical parameter, comprising:
an accumulation detection module (ADM) for continuously measuring the physical parameter in terms of exposure dose in an accumulation mode, wherein the ADM is a light-powered sensing system comprising at least one photodiode (PD) for continuously generating photocurrent with a magnitude that is proportional to an intensity of electromagnetic radiation in response to exposure to the electromagnetic radiation (EMR), at least one capacitor connected to the at least one PD in parallel for storing charges accumulated from the generated photocurrent of the at least one PD, and at least one transistor having a source and a drain respectively connected to two terminals of the at least one capacitor;
a power source for operably providing power; and
a system on a chip (SoC) coupling with the ADM and the power source and operably in a sleep mode, or in a run mode, wherein the SoC comprises a wireless communication module, at least one signal converter and a comparator coupled to the source of the at least one transistor, and a controller coupled to the at least one signal converter, the comparator and the wireless communication module, and is configured such that in operation, the comparator monitors a voltage across the at least one capacitor when the SoC operates in the sleep mode, and when the voltage is equal to or greater than a pre-defined threshold, generates a wake-up event that triggers the SoC to operate in the run mode in which the controller wirelessly transmits a signal of the voltage converted by the at least one signal converter to a receiver through the wireless communication module, activates the at least one transistor to discharge the at least one capacitor and then returns the SoC to the sleep mode.

2. The electronic system of claim 1 , wherein the SoC further comprises at least one general-purpose input/output (GPIO) coupled between a gate of the at least one transistor and the controller for operably activating the at least one transistor to discharge the at least one capacitor.

3. The electronic system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one PD comprises a plurality of PDs, and each PD of the plurality of PDs is responsive to a respective wavelength region of the electromagnetic radiation, wherein the ADM is characterized with a plurality of channels, and each channel has a respective PD of the plurality of PDs, the at least one capacitor coupled to said respective PD and the at least one transistor coupled to said at least one capacitor, for measuring the exposure dose of said respective wavelength region of the electromagnetic radiation.

4. The electronic system of claim 3 , wherein the plurality of PDs comprises an UVA PD, a blue PD, and an infrared (IR) PD.

5. The electronic system of claim 3 , wherein the at least one signal converter comprises a plurality of analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), and each ADC is electrically couple to said each channel of the plurality of channels, and wherein the comparator is configured to monitor the voltage in said each channel of the plurality of channels, such that when the voltage is equal to or greater than the pre-defined threshold, the SoC enters the run mode and wirelessly transmits signals output from the plurality of ADCs and simultaneously discharges said at least one capacitor of the plurality of channels.

6. The electronic system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one PD comprises a plurality of PDs, the at least one capacitor comprises a plurality of capacitors and the at least one transistor comprise a first transistor and a second transistor, wherein the ADM is characterized with an outdoor ADM and an indoor ADM for monitoring the exposure to EMR outdoors and indoors, respectively, wherein the outdoor ADM has one of the plurality of PDs, one of the plurality of capacitors coupled to said at least one PD and the first transistor coupled to said at least one capacitor, and wherein the indoor ADM has remaining PDs of the plurality of PDs arranged in parallel, remaining capacitors from the plurality of capacitors arranged in parallel and coupled to the remaining PDs and the second transistor coupled to the remaining capacitors.

7. The electronic system of claim 6 , wherein the indoor ADM and the outdoor ADM are paired with a UVA PD and a third transistor and operably switchable based on presence or absence of UVA radiation, wherein the presence or the absence of the UVA radiation results in a high value or a low value of a voltage, Vuva, output from the UVA PD, respectively.

8. The electronic system of claim 7 , wherein the SoC is configured to automatically switch between the indoor ADM and the outdoor ADM through a two-to-one multiplexer, wherein the two-to-one multiplexer is configured to switch the ADM to the outdoor ADM when the voltage VUVA is in the high value, and to the indoor ADM when the voltage VUVA is in the low value.

9. The electronic system of claim 8 , wherein a source and a drain of the third transistor are coupled to a source and a drain of the second transistor, respectively, and the UVA PD is coupled between a gate and the drain of the third transistor, such that in the outdoor ADM, the third transistor continuously discharges the indoor ADM to prevent excessive charge buildup on the plurality of capacitors.

10. The electronic system of claim 9 , wherein the SoC further comprises an edge detector coupled between the controller and the UVA PD for monitoring the high value or the low value of the voltage Vuva and generating a wake-up signal upon a rising edge when the high value or the low value goes from the low value to the high value, or a falling edge when the high value or the low value goes from the high value to the low value, corresponding to indoor-to-outdoor or outdoor-to-indoor switches, respectively, and wherein at each and every indoor-to-outdoor or outdoor-to-indoor switch, the wake-up signal causes the controller to discharge both the indoor ADM and the outdoor ADM, to update a 1-bit flag value with ‘0’ for indoor and ‘1’ for outdoor that is passed to an user interface as an indicator of activation of the indoor ADM or the outdoor ADM, and then to enter the sleep mode.

11. The electronic system of claim 1 , being a first dosimeter for monitoring exposure dose indoors, a second dosimeter for adaptively monitoring exposure dose outdoors and the exposure dose indoors, or a multichannel dosimeter for simultaneously monitoring exposure dose in different wavelength regions of the electromagnetic radiation.

12. The electronic system of claim 1 , wherein the ADM operably measures the exposure dose in a continuous fashion, without power consumption from the power source.

13. The electronic system of claim 1 , wherein the controller is a central processing unit (CPU) or a microcontroller.

14. The electronic system of claim 1 , wherein the wireless communication module comprises at least one of a Bluetooth® low energy (BLE) module, cellular communication module, and a near-field communication (NFC) module.

15. The electronic system of claim 14 , wherein the wireless communication module automatically and periodically transmits a measured dose of the physical parameter to the receiver without an active user intervention.

16. The electronic system of claim 1 , wherein the sleep mode is characterized with a deep sleep mode and a shallow sleep mode, wherein when the voltage or a stored electrical energy is less than the pre-defined threshold, the SoC operates in the deep sleep mode in which only a low-power comparator is energized a deep sleep samp

Assignees

• Univ Northwestern

Inventors

• Rogers John A
• Xu Shuai
• Heo Seung Yun
• Kwon Kyeongha
• Lee Jong Yoon

Classifications

• A61B2562/0247

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• G01J2001/446

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• H04Q2209/826

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• A61B5/14517

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• A61B5/742

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