Method and apparatus for modular power management and protection of critical services in ambulatory medical devices

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9430022-B2
Application number	US-201214128811-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 22, 2012
Priority date	Jun 23, 2011
Publication date	Aug 30, 2016
Grant date	Aug 30, 2016

Abstract

Architecture and associated methods are provided for power management of ambulatory medical devices. The medical devices is described by a suite of services, each assigned a level of priority (from discretionary to critical), and the power management architecture allows use interchangeable control modules of various levels. A Power Safety Controller supervises the system to ensure appropriate preservation of critical services and provide warnings for low battery level. A Fidelity Controller ensures optimal allocation of power between the different services. A device supervision module estimates device characteristics which can be used by the other levels. The overall architecture ensures a safe and optimal management of services, and allows for a bottom-up deployment of the device.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method for managing power consumption of a battery-operated device configured to provide a plurality of services, comprising, performing by a processor:
receiving a battery level of said device, at least one parameter of a user of the device, and the services being provided by the device, constructing time profiles encoding a probability of at least one of said battery level, user parameter, and services being provided having certain values at each of a number of time segments k;
setting a fidelity policy u(k) for each time segment k, said fidelity policy defining a level of fidelity for each service, based on said time profiles and battery level;
computing, based on said time profiles, an amount of time remaining before battery exhaustion under said battery level and a mode of operation having a predefine power consumption rate, and taking a predetermined action based on the computed amount of time remaining with respect to at least one preset threshold; and
regulating access of said services to resources of said device for performing said services, in accordance with said predetermined action.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of said services is a critical service being provided to said user, said at least one parameter is a risk level of said user with respect to said critical service, said amount of time remaining is computed based on said risk level of said user, and said predetermined action causes maximizing availability of said critical service to said user.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein said amount of time remaining is computed by the equation:

rft
⁡

(
k
)

=

x
⁡

(
k
)

/

w
c

⁡

(
k
)

where

{

w
c

⁡

(
k
)

=

∑

i
=
1

n

⁢

f

i
,

u
min

⁡

(

I
c

⁢

a
i

)

I
c

⁢

a
i

=

{

1

if
⁢

⁢

a
i

⁢

⁢
is
⁢

⁢
critical

0

otherwise

where rft(k) is the amount of time remaining at time segment k, x(k) is remaining battery life, and a i is a service being used.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein said amount of time remaining is computed by the equation:

rft
⁡

(
k
)

=

argmin
⁢



x
⁡

(
k
)

-

∑

t
=
1

τ

⁢

ω
c

⁡

(

k
+
t

)



Assignees

• Kovachev Boris P
• Keith-Hynes Patrick T
• Breton Marc D
• Patek Stephen D
• Univ Virginia Patent Foundation

Inventors

• Kovachev Boris P
• Keith-Hynes Patrick T
• Breton Marc D
• Patek Stephen D

Classifications

• H02J7/63

  against overdischarge · CPC title

• G06F1/329

  by task scheduling · CPC title

• H04W52/0264

  by selectively disabling software applications · CPC title

• G06F1/3206

  Monitoring of events, devices or parameters that trigger a change in power modality · CPC title

• G06F9/34

  Addressing or accessing the instruction operand or the result {; Formation of operand address; Addressing modes (address translation G06F12/00)} · CPC title