Plaque Detection Toothbrush with Targeted Brushing Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing electric toothbrushes lack the ability to automatically detect plaque-infected areas and control brushing movements effectively, leading to potential abrasiveness to teeth and gums, as they operate blindly based on user placement without specific targeting of cleaning needs.
Innovation Solution
An electric motorized toothbrush equipped with a plaque detection unit using image processing, edge detection, and proprietary algorithms, along with motorized bristle arrays providing multiple degrees of freedom, to automatically detect and focus on plaque-infected areas, adjusting pressure and movement to prevent abrasiveness.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If the toothbrush operates with faster circular repetitions to improve cleaning efficiency, then productivity increases, but the abrasiveness to teeth and gums worsens
Solution Approach 1:
The toothbrush incorporates sensors that detect plaque presence and provide real-time feedback to a control system, which automatically adjusts brushing parameters. This closed-loop feedback mechanism enables the system to apply aggressive brushing only where plaque is detected, rather than uniformly across all teeth, thus maintaining high cleaning efficiency while reducing unnecessary abrasiveness.
Solution Approach 2:
The system transitions from uniform brushing across all teeth to localized targeted brushing. By using plaque detection sensors to identify specific infected areas, the toothbrush applies different brushing intensities to different locations - high intensity only where plaque is present, and low or zero intensity where teeth are already clean, thereby resolving the contradiction between overall cleaning efficiency and localized abrasiveness.
2Reliability
If the toothbrush performs comprehensive brushing across all areas to ensure thorough cleaning, then cleaning coverage improves, but time consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The toothbrush performs preliminary scanning of the oral cavity using plaque detection sensors before the actual brushing action. This preliminary detection phase identifies which areas require cleaning, allowing the system to skip already-clean areas during the brushing phase, thus maintaining comprehensive cleaning coverage while significantly reducing the time spent on unnecessary brushing motions.
Solution Approach 2:
The brushing process is segmented into detection phase and cleaning phase. The detection phase identifies plaque-infected areas, and the cleaning phase is then segmented to target only those specific locations. This segmentation allows the system to achieve comprehensive cleaning coverage by focusing resources only on problematic areas rather than uniformly treating all teeth, thereby reducing overall time consumption.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If the toothbrush uses automated plaque detection and targeted brushing to reduce abrasiveness, then harm to teeth and gums decreases, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system replaces manual mechanical control with automated sensor-based detection and electronic control. Instead of relying on user judgment and manual adjustment of brushing parameters, the invention uses optical or electromagnetic sensors to detect plaque and electronic control systems to automatically adjust brushing intensity, thereby reducing abrasiveness through automation despite the increased device complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The toothbrush performs self-diagnosis and self-adjustment through integrated sensors and control algorithms. The device autonomously detects plaque locations and automatically modifies its brushing pattern and intensity without requiring external intervention or complex user programming, enabling harm reduction through self-service automation while keeping the user interface simple.
4Productivity
If the toothbrush focuses only on detected plaque areas to improve efficiency, then productivity increases, but measurement precision requirements worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The system employs dynamic adjustment of brushing parameters based on real-time plaque detection. Rather than requiring perfect static detection of all plaque boundaries, the system continuously scans and dynamically adapts brushing intensity and position, allowing it to achieve high productivity by responding to changing conditions during brushing, thereby tolerating lower measurement precision requirements compared to static approaches.
Data Source
Figure 1A~1C
Figure 1D~1F
Figure 2A~2B
AI summary
The present invention relates to a dental care device for detection and removal of plaque automatically and independently, comprising: a) a motion controlled and pressure sensitive plaque removal head having at least one array of bristles; b) a plaque detection unit adapted to capture images of the teeth and gums, wherein said plaque detection unit includes an imaging device and a light source with specific wavelength for illumination said teeth and gums; and c) a plaque detection engine adapted to process the captured images in order to detect plaque infected areas on said teeth, and accordingly to generate instructions for automatically guiding said motion controlled plaque removal head, thereby executing all the necessary movements for automatically and independently removing the plaque from said teeth while minimizing abrasiveness by controlling the pressure applied and avoiding brushing to clean areas of the teeth and gums.