System and method for physically detecting, identifying, and diagnosing medical electronic devices connectable to a network

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12445461-B2
Application number	US-202217965246-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 13, 2022
Priority date	Feb 14, 2018
Publication date	Oct 14, 2025
Grant date	Oct 14, 2025

Abstract

A method for detecting, in a real-time manner, a presence or an absence of a an anomaly in or a cyber attack onto a medical apparatus comprises the steps of capturing, with an antenna, one or more emissions of electromagnetic energy from the processing devices within medical apparatus; converting, with a receiver coupled to the antenna, the one or more emissions from an analog to a digital form; generating, with a controller, a digital signal in a time domain; converting, the digital signal from the time domain to a frequency domain, the digital signal containing a signature of cross modulation products from the non-linear attachments; processing, in the frequency domain, the signature of cross modulation products to determine mixing characteristics of the cross modulation products; and detecting, based on the mixing characteristics, the absence or the presence of the anomaly or the cyber attack.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, comprising the steps of:
capturing, through an analog data bus coupler coupled to a data bus being connected to a medical apparatus, an emission of electromagnetic energy in a radio frequency (RF) spectrum from the data bus, the emission being captured as an analog emission signal, the analog data bus coupler including at least one of:
a capacitor and a resistor coupled to data lines within the data bus and wherein capturing the analog emission signal comprises acquiring, with the capacitor and the resistor, the analog emission signal as a capacitive signal,
a resistor and a transformer coupled to two data lines within the data bus and wherein capturing the analog emission signal comprises acquiring, with the resistor and the transformer, the analog emission signal as a voltage differential between the two data lines,
one resistor coupled to one line within the data bus, another resistor coupled to another line within the data bus, and an isolating transformer that are all inductively coupled to the data bus, and wherein capturing the analog emission signal comprises acquiring the analog emission signal with both resistors and the isolating transformer,
acquiring, with the analog data bus coupler, the analog emission signal as a common mode difference in voltage or a difference in common mode current flow between a shield and a data line of the data bus, and
two wires, each wire coupled to a data line within the data bus and, wherein capturing the analog emission signal comprises acquiring one of an individual near field transmission of data lines and a difference between near field emissions of the data lines;

processing, with a controller, an emission signature of the analog emission signal; and
identifying, with the controller, based on a processed emission signature, a status of the medical apparatus.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the status comprises at least one of a degradation, an aging, a damage, a nonoperation of the medical apparatus, and a change in a performance of the medical apparatus.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein processing the emission signature comprises the steps of:
generating, with the controller, a digital waveform in a time domain, the digital waveform containing the emission signature;
converting, with the controller, the emission signature from a time domain to a frequency domain; and
detecting, with the controller in the time domain, a time varying content, in which sideband frequencies arise and disappear due to cyclic function of an analog to digital converter, and/or frequency shifts occurrence.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein processing the emission signature comprises processing the emission signature in at least one of a frequency domain and a time domain.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying the status comprises identifying an absence or a presence of an anomaly.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein identifying the absence or the presence of the anomaly comprises identifying the absence or the presence of the anomaly based on a detection of a time varying content.

7. The method of claim 5 , wherein identifying the absence or the presence of the anomaly comprises identifying the absence or the presence of the anomaly through at least one of a cross modulation analysis, an intermodulation analysis, a circuit analysis, a frequency shift analysis, and a harmonic series analysis.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising converting, with an analog to digital converter (ADC) within a receiver, captured emission from an analog form to a digital form prior to processing, with the controller, the emission signature.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the medical apparatus being at least one of physically separated from a patient, connected to the patient, partially imbedded in the patient and imbedded in the patient.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising disabling operation of the medical apparatus when identifying the status comprises identifying an anomaly.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the medical apparatus comprises a transmitter for a remote care management.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the data bus defines a data transmission connection of the medical apparatus.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the data bus defines a communication bus.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the analog data bus coupler further comprises a housing being mechanically coupled to the data bus.

15. A method, comprising the steps of:
capturing an emission of electromagnetic energy in a radio frequency (RF) range as an analog emission signal through an analog data bus coupler coupled to a data bus being connected to a medical apparatus, the analog data bus coupler including at least one of:
a capacitor and a resistor coupled to data lines within the data bus and wherein capturing the analog emission signal comprises acquiring, with the capacitor and the resistor, the analog emission signal as a capacitive signal,
a resistor and a transformer coupled to two data lines within the data bus and wherein capturing the analog emission signal comprises acquiring, with the resistor and the transformer, the analog emission signal as a voltage differential between the two data lines,
one resistor coupled to one line within the data bus, another resistor coupled to another line within the data bus, and an isolating transformer that are all inductively coupled to the data bus, and wherein capturing the analog emission signal comprises acquiring the analog emission signal with both resistors and the isolating transformer,
acquiring, with the analog data bus coupler, the analog emission signal as a common mode difference in voltage or a difference in common mode current flow between a shield and a data line of the data bus, and
two wires, each wire coupled to a data line within the data bus and, wherein capturing the analog emission signal comprises acquiring one of an individual near field transmission of data lines and a difference between near field emissions of the data lines;

processing, with a controller, an emission signature of the analog emission signal; and
determining a functionality of the medical apparatus, based on a processed emission signature, as at least one of an operational, an aged, a failing and being beyond useful life.

16. A method, comprising the steps of:
processing, with a controller, a signature of an emission of electromagnetic energy in a radio frequency (RF) spectrum captured as an analog signal through a coupling device coupled to a data bus being connected to a medical apparatus to a network, the coupling device including at least one of:
a capacitor and a resistor coupled to data lines within the data bus and wherein capturing the analog signal comprises acquiring, with the capacitor and the resistor, the analog signal as a capacitive signal,
a resistor and a transformer coupled to two data lines within the data bus and wherein capturing the analog signal comprises acquiring, with the resistor and the transformer, the analog signal as a voltage differential between the two data lines,
one resistor coupled to one line within the data bus, another resistor coupled to another line within the data bus, and an isolating transformer that are all inductively coupled to the data bus, and wherein capturing the analog signal comprises acquiring the analog signal with both resistors and the isolating transformer,
acquiring, with the coupling device, the analog signal as a common mode difference in voltage or a difference in common mode current flow between a shield and a data line of t

Assignees

• Nokomis Inc

Inventors

• Uplinger Ii James Robert
• Keller Iii Walter J
• Brant Adam

Classifications

• H04L63/1441 Primary

  Countermeasures against malicious traffic (countermeasures against attacks on cryptographic mechanisms H04L9/002) · CPC title

• H04L67/12

  specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks · CPC title

• H04L63/1416 Primary

  Event detection, e.g. attack signature detection · CPC title