Laser guided auto collimation system and method for medical apparatus

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9662076-B2
Application number	US-201113292429-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 9, 2011
Priority date	Nov 9, 2010
Publication date	May 30, 2017
Grant date	May 30, 2017

Abstract

A collimation system for a medical apparatus includes a collimation component having a laser emitting device, at least one photographing device, and a computing device. The laser emitting device is configured to the emit a laser beam to irradiate on a landmark on a body surface of a patient, the at least one photographing device is configured to take a photograph of a laser irradiation spot, and the computing device is configured to obtain a position of the laser irradiation spot by performing computation on images obtained by the at least one photographing device. The system further includes a moving component provided on the medical apparatus and configured to move to a target position for performing diagnosis or treatment. The medical apparatus automatically is configured to locate the moving component based on the position of the irradiation spot obtained from the computation.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A collimation system for a medical apparatus, said collimation system comprising:
a collimation component comprising a laser emitting device, at least one photographing device, and a computing device, wherein the laser emitting device is configured to the emit a laser beam to irradiate a landmark on a body surface of a patient, the at least one photographing device is configured to take a photograph of a laser irradiation spot, and the computing device is configured to obtain a target position of the laser irradiation spot by performing computation on images obtained by the at least one photographing device; and
a moving component provided on the medical apparatus the moving component configured to be positioned and move to the target position for performing diagnosis or treatment, wherein the medical apparatus automatically is configured to locate the target position based on the position of the irradiation spot obtained from the computation, wherein said laser emitting device comprises a controller configured to control continuous emission of laser pulses and the controller is configured to trigger the at least one photographing device to start taking photographs once the controller starts to continuously emit laser pulses, wherein an acquisition frequency of the at least one photographing device is higher than an emission frequency of the laser pulses.

2. The collimation system according to claim 1 , wherein said laser emitting device comprises a hand-held device.

3. The collimation system according to claim 1 , wherein the acquisition frequency of the at least one photographing device is twice the frequency of the laser pulses.

4. The collimation system according to claim 1 , wherein the computing device is configured to perform a subtraction computation on adjacent images obtained by the at least one photographing device to obtain a position of the laser irradiation spot.

5. The collimation system according to claim 4 , wherein the laser emitting device is configured to stop emitting laser pulses when the position of the laser irradiation spot obtained by the computing device remains consistent for a period of time.

6. The collimation system according to claim 5 , wherein a difference between positions of the laser irradiation spot obtained by the computing device for multiple times is smaller than a predetermined threshold value when the position remains consistent.

7. The collimation system according to claim 1 , wherein the least one photographing device comprises at least three photographing devices arranged to surround the medical apparatus.

8. The collimation system according to claim 7 , wherein said medical apparatus comprises an X-ray diagnosis apparatus, and said at least one photographing device comprises at least one digital camera.

9. A collimation method for a medical apparatus, said method comprising
emitting a laser beam to irradiate on a landmark on a body surface of a patient by continuously emitting laser pulses from a laser emitting device;
controlling a trigger of cameras to start taking photographs when the laser pulses begin to be emitted continuously;
taking photographs of a laser irradiation spot at an acquisition frequency that is higher than an emission frequency of the laser pulses;
obtaining a position of the laser irradiation spot by computing images obtained from the photographing; and
automatically locating and positioning a moving component based on the position of the laser irradiation spot obtained from the computation.

10. The collimation method according to claim 9 , wherein emitting a laser beam further comprises emitting the laser beam using a hand-held laser emitting device.

11. The collimation method according to claim 10 , wherein acquiring photographs of the laser irradiation spot at an acquisition frequency further comprises acquiring photographs of the laser irradiation spot at an acquisition frequency that is twice the frequency of the laser pulses.

12. The collimation method according to claim 10 , wherein obtaining a position further comprises performing subtraction computation on adjacent images obtained from the photographing to obtain the position of the laser irradiation spot.

13. The collimation method according to claim 12 , further comprises terminating emission of the laser pulses when the position of the laser irradiation spot obtained from the computation remains consistent for a period of time.

14. The collimation method according to claim 13 , wherein terminating emission of the laser pulses further comprises terminating emissions of the laser pulses when a difference between positions of the laser irradiation spot obtained by the computing device for multiple times over a predetermined period of time is smaller than a predetermined threshold value.

15. The collimation method according to claim 10 , further comprises arranging at least three photographing devices to take photographs of the laser irradiation spot.

16. The collimation method according to claim 15 , wherein the medical apparatus is an X-ray diagnosis apparatus, and each photographing device is a digital camera.

Assignees

• Jia Lei
• Lin Lin
• Gen Electric

Inventors

• Jia Lei
• Lin Lin

Classifications

• A61B6/08

  Auxiliary means for directing the radiation beam to a particular spot, e.g. using light beams · CPC title

• A61B6/0492 Primary

  using markers or indicia for aiding patient positioning · CPC title