Optical Sensor Multiplexing With Parallel Scan Scheduling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing optical sensors face challenges in efficiently multiplexing multiple features or clients, such as heart rate and oxygen saturation measurements, while accommodating varying requirements and maintaining performance as the number of clients increases.
Innovation Solution
The system employs a hardware and software architecture that allows for parallelization of optical sensors, enabling multiple clients to be served simultaneously by assembling patterns of time slots for light path measurements and distributing them according to client requests, using frames and segments to optimize scan sequences.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If a single optical sensor is used to serve multiple clients with varying scan rate requirements, then device complexity is reduced, but measurement precision and reliability deteriorate due to inability to maintain optimal scan rates for different clients simultaneously
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the optical sensor into multiple independent sensor channels (first optical sensor, second optical sensor, etc.), each capable of operating independently at its own optimal scan rate. This segmentation allows each sensor to serve specific clients with different scan rate requirements without compromising measurement precision, while the overall system architecture remains manageable through modular design.
2Reliability
If the number of optical sensors is increased to serve multiple clients simultaneously, then measurement precision and reliability improve, but device complexity and manufacturing cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent designs optical sensors with multi-functionality, where each sensor can serve multiple clients with different scan rate requirements. The sensors are configured to operate at variable scan rates and can be dynamically assigned to different clients based on their specific needs, allowing a smaller number of sensors to reliably serve multiple clients without proportionally increasing device complexity.
3Productivity
If scan rate is increased to meet high data acquisition requirements, then productivity improves, but energy consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic scan rate adjustment for optical sensors based on the specific requirements of served clients. The system can vary the scan rate of each sensor independently, increasing it only when high data acquisition rates are needed and reducing it during periods of lower demand. This dynamic approach maintains high productivity when necessary while significantly reducing overall energy consumption compared to continuous high-rate operation.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach enhances performance by allowing multiple features to be measured efficiently, even with varying requirements, by optimizing scan sequences and reducing measurement time, thereby improving the flexibility and accuracy of optical sensor operations.
Implementation Method 1
an optical sensor to perform a plurality of optical measurements... measuring a plurality of light paths
Implementation Method 2
a plurality of light emitters configured to emit light at one or more wavelengths
Implementation Method 3
a plurality of light detectors configured to detect return of the light from the one or more light emitters
Data Source
AI summary
An optical sensor can be multiplexed for different clients/features including estimating information or characteristics of a user's physiological signals. Additionally, the clients/features can include estimating information or characteristics independent from a user's physiological signals. As the number of clients increase and/or as the requirements for the clients increase, flexibility can be provided to accommodate the various clients. Parallelization of the optical sensor can be used to improve performance as the number of clients increase. For example, the hardware and software architecture can assemble patterns of time slots that measure all desired light paths for the multiple clients and distribute the corresponding measurements to each client according to the client requests. In some examples, the scanning sequence can be represented by frames including slots associated with multiple clients to compress the representation for larger or more complex scan sequences.