CN211723080U - Endoscope with a detachable handle - Google Patents

Abstract

The utility model provides an endoscope, it includes preceding tip, insert tube and the handle that connects according to the preface, and connects the host computer, and the endoscope includes image processing system, and it includes image sensor and image processor. The image sensor is arranged at the front end part and comprises at least two bonding pads, one bonding pad receives a horizontal line scanning period, and the image sensor receives and converts a plurality of light beams and outputs an output signal through the other bonding pad corresponding to the horizontal line scanning period. The image processor is arranged in the handle or the host, is electrically connected with the image sensor, converts the output signal into an integrated signal, respectively intercepts a first signal and a second signal corresponding to the integrated signal according to a horizontal line scanning period, and obtains image pixel data by calculating the first signal and the second signal.

Description

Endoscope with a detachable handle

Technical Field

The present invention relates to an endoscope, and more particularly to an endoscope having a reduced-size image sensor.

Background

The existing endoscope is composed of a sharp end, a bending tube, an insertion tube and a handle which are connected with each other. The endoscope is used for carrying out invasive internal operation or closely observing symptoms or affected parts on patients or observation objects, so that the camera of the camera is arranged on the tip head, and images of the symptoms or the affected parts or the operation process are captured by the camera of the image sensor to be transmitted to a host connected with the endoscope for displaying.

Since the camera is one of indispensable components of the endoscope, it is one of the current problems to improve the resolution of the image. If the resolution of the image needs to be increased, the volume of the image sensor of the camera needs to be increased to obtain a better resolution of the image.

However, the volume of the tip head of the endoscope is increased, and although high resolution images can be obtained, the connecting part of the insertion tube and the tip head is increased, and besides the connecting part is increased, the connecting part of the insertion tube is also increased, so that the cost is increased, and when the endoscope is used for a human body, an opening with a relative size is needed for the human body to invade by the tip head and the insertion tube, the size of the opening of the human body corresponds to the caliber of the pipe orifice of the tip head inserted into the human body, and in fact, the burden of the human body is increased because the size of the pipe orifice of the tip head is larger if the size of the tip head cannot be reduced.

If the size of the tip is reduced to reduce the burden on the human body, or if the size of the camera is reduced, the resolution of the camera is reduced, which causes a trouble in observation, and may reduce the overall accuracy of the operation or the determination of the cause of the disease.

Therefore, it is desirable to provide a new endoscope with a reduced volume image sensor.

SUMMERY OF THE UTILITY MODEL

An object of the utility model is to provide an endoscope, can solve one or more among the above-mentioned prior art problem.

To achieve the above object, the present invention provides an endoscope. The endoscope comprises a front end part, an insertion tube and a handle which are connected in sequence, and is connected with a host. The endoscope comprises an image sensor and an image processor. The image sensor is arranged at the front end part and comprises at least two bonding pads, one bonding pad receives a horizontal line scanning period, and the image sensor receives and converts the plurality of light beams and outputs an output signal through the other bonding pad corresponding to the horizontal line scanning period. The image processor is arranged in the handle or the host, is electrically connected with the image sensor, converts the output signal into an integrated signal, respectively intercepts a first signal and a second signal corresponding to the integrated signal according to a horizontal line scanning period, and obtains image pixel data by calculating the first signal and the second signal.

The utility model has the advantages that: the utility model discloses an endoscope, only use four pads to do the transmission through the image sensor and receive and set up the image sensor at the front end portion of endoscope, other image processing relevant parts such as image processor all set up in the handle of endoscope or the host computer of connection, then the endoscope is whole can reduce because of the reduction of the volume of image sensor, do not restrict reducing of image sensor, still can carry out perfect processing to the image of picking up, consequently when the volume of image sensor reduces and can save the cost, more promote image resolution in order to maintain the quality of image.

The present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings and specific embodiments, but the present invention is not limited thereto.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of an endoscope according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 2 shows a block schematic diagram of the endoscope of fig. 1.

Fig. 3 is a block diagram of an endoscope according to another embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

The present invention will be described in further detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Fig. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of an endoscope according to an embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 2 shows a block schematic diagram of the endoscope of fig. 1. Referring to fig. 1 and 2, the endoscope 100 includes a front end 130, an insertion tube 110, a handle 120 and a connecting wire 140 connected in sequence. Wherein one end of the handle 120 is connected to one end of the insertion tube 110, the other end of the handle 120 is connected to one end of the connection wire 140, and one end of the front end 130 is connected to the other end of the insertion tube 110. The endoscope 100 further includes an image sensor 210 and an image processor 220, and in practice, the image sensor 210 and the image processor 220 further form an image processing system 200.

In an embodiment, the image processing system 200 is disposed in the endoscope 100, and the image processing system 200 includes an image sensor 210 and an image processor 220. In another embodiment, the image processing system 200 may be further applied to an endoscope 100, and the image processing system 200 is configured in the endoscope 100 according to the requirement, but the invention is not limited thereto.

In this embodiment, the endoscope 100 may be a reusable endoscope 100 or a disposable endoscope 100, and the insertion tube 110 may be a flexible tube or a rigid tube, so that the user can select the reusable endoscope 100 or the disposable endoscope 100 according to the requirement, and further select the insertion tube 110 as the flexible tube or the rigid tube according to the requirement, but the invention is not limited thereto.

The insertion tube 110 of this embodiment may include a multi-lumen catheter formed by a curved portion 111 and an extended portion 112 (not shown) connected together, and further includes a first covering member (not shown) and a second covering member (not shown). The first coating component is sleeved outside the multi-cavity conduit, and the second coating component is sleeved outside the first coating component. In practice, the first covering element of this embodiment further covers the multi-lumen catheter, and the second covering element also covers the first covering element and enables the multi-lumen catheter to be more tightly covered therein. The first and second coating members may be substantially a mesh member or a silicone material and a heat shrinkable sleeve. In practice, the multi-lumen catheter may be adapted to allow passage of at least one instrument therethrough. However, the present invention is not limited thereto.

In this embodiment, the handle 120 further forms an accommodating space (not shown) and includes a first circuit board 121, a rotating structure (not shown), a control component (not shown) and an operation component 122, the first circuit board 121 and the rotating structure are accommodated in the accommodating space, the operation component 122 is disposed outside the handle 120 and connected to the rotating structure, the rotating structure and the bending portion 111 of the insertion tube 110 are connected through the control component disposed in the multi-lumen catheter by the image sensor, and when the user operates the operation component 122, the rotating structure drives the control component to control the bending portion 111 of the insertion tube 110 to bend.

The endoscope 100 further includes a camera assembly 150 and at least one transmission line (not shown), the camera assembly 150 has a camera 151 and a second circuit board 152, the camera assembly 150 is disposed at the front end portion 130, in other words, the camera 151 and the second circuit board 152 of the camera assembly 150 are electrically connected to each other and further disposed in the front end portion 130. The second circuit board 152 is further electrically connected to the first circuit board 121 of the handle 120 through a transmission line. In practice, the front end 130 further communicates with the multi-lumen catheter, and the instruments can be further exposed out of the front end 130, and can be respectively passed through the image sensor 210, the instruments and the camera 151 for performing different operations or examinations.

In this embodiment, the endoscope 100 is further electrically connected to a main body 300, one end of the connecting wire 140 is connected to the first circuit board 121 in the handle 120, and the other end of the connecting wire 140 is further connected to the main body 300, the camera 151 in the front end portion 130 captures a plurality of light beams and transmits the light beams to the first circuit board 121 of the handle 120 through the transmission line, and then the light beams captured by the camera 151 can be transmitted through the signal line in the connecting wire 140, and the image frame F is obtained through conversion and calculation and displayed on at least one screen 310 of the main body 300. In practice, the endoscope 100 further has the main body 300 or is applied to the main body 300, but the present invention is not limited thereto.

Referring to fig. 2 again, in an embodiment, the image sensor 210 is disposed at the front end 130 of the endoscope 100 and electrically connected to the camera assembly 150, that is, the image sensor 210 is disposed on the second circuit board 152 and electrically connected to the camera 151 of the camera assembly 150, and the image processor 220 is disposed on the handle 120 and electrically connected to the first circuit board 121, so that the endoscope 100 converts the plurality of light beams into the frame F through the image sensor 210 and the image processor 220, and transmits the frame F to the host 300 through the connection wire 140 for displaying.

Fig. 3 is a block diagram of an endoscope according to another embodiment of the present invention. In another embodiment, as shown in fig. 3, the image processing system 200' includes an image sensor 210 and an image processor 220. The image processing system 200 ' can be further applied to an endoscope 100 ', and the image sensor 210 of the image processing system 200 ' is disposed at the front end portion 130 and electrically connected to the camera assembly 150, i.e., is further electrically connected to the camera 151 of the camera assembly 150 and disposed on the second circuit board 152. The image processing system 200' of fig. 3 is substantially the same as the image processing system 200 of fig. 2, and like components are labeled with like reference numerals. The difference between the image processing system 200' of FIG. 3 and the image processing system 200 of FIG. 2 is that: the image processor 220 of the image processing system 200 'of FIG. 3 is disposed on the host 300', and further disposed on a circuit board 320 of the host 300 ', So that the plurality of light beams are converted into the output signals So by the image processing system 200', and the output signals So are transmitted to the host 300 'through the connection line 140, and then processed to generate the frame F and displayed on the screen 310 of the host 300'.

In one embodiment, the image sensor 210 includes four pads. The image sensor 210 receives a horizontal line scanning period (not shown) through one of the pads, and the horizontal line scanning period is composed of a plurality of pulses CLK. In other words, the image sensor 210 receives a plurality of pulses CLK, and the image sensor 210 receives and converts a plurality of light beams and outputs an output signal So through another pad corresponding to a horizontal line scanning period. Further, the image sensor 210 outputs an output signal So converted from a plurality of light beams to a potential in a horizontal line scanning period according to the pulse CLK. The four pads of the image sensor 210 may further be a power pad 211, a ground pad 214, a pulse receiving pad 212, and an output pad 213, and the pulse receiving pad 212 of the image sensor 210 may receive a pulse CLK of a horizontal line scanning period, the output pad 213 is used to output an output signal So, and the power pad 211 and the ground pad 214 are respectively connected to and receive a power supply V and a ground power G provided by the second circuit board 152, So that the image sensor 210 may operate. Since the image sensor 210 does not need to process the output signal So and then analyze and calculate the output signal So without converting the output signal into image pixel data, the image sensor 210 can reduce the number of pads, except that the volume of the image sensor 210 in the manufacturing process can be more limited in structure, package and/or manufacturing process, the image sensor 210 only needs to use four pads 211, 212, 213, 214, and the four pads 211, 212, 213, 214 of the image sensor 210 can convert the plurality of light beams into the output signal So, and in implementation, the transmission protocol of the image sensor 210 is customized according to the requirement, i.e., the content and data of the output signal So are defined by itself, So that the output signal So is a string of data with a predetermined format, and correspondingly, the volume of the image sensor 210 is reduced.

Referring to fig. 2 again, in an embodiment, the pulse CLK continuously received by the image sensor 210 may be input to the image sensor 210 from an external input or generated by the image processor 220, for example, every N pulses CLK may form a horizontal line scanning period H, and the pulse CLK generated by the image processor 220 is exemplified as being continuously input to the image sensor 210. Therefore, the pulse CLK is generated by the image processor 220 and transmitted to the second circuit board 152 via the first circuit board 121 for input to the image sensor 210.

Referring to fig. 3, in another embodiment, the pulse CLK continuously received by the image sensor 210 is generated by the image processor 220, transmitted to the first circuit board 121 via the circuit board 320 of the host 300', and transmitted to the second circuit board 152 for input to the image sensor 210.

In another embodiment, the pulse CLK continuously received by the image sensor 210 is directly transmitted from the image processor 220 to the second circuit board via the circuit board 320 of the host 300' and then input to the image sensor 210.

In the embodiment, the horizontal line scanning period is further divided into a plurality of pulse periods (not shown), and each pulse period includes a plurality of pulses CLK, and the horizontal line scanning period is further divided into six pulse periods, that is, the horizontal line scanning period is formed by the six pulse periods, and the six pulse periods are not overlapped with each other. Therefore, the total number of pulses CLK in all the pulse periods is the number of pulses CLK in the horizontal line scanning period. However, the present invention is not limited thereto.

The image processor 220 is electrically connected to the image sensor 210 and includes an analog-to-digital converter 221, a signal capturing unit 222 and an arithmetic unit 223. The image processor 220 receives the output signal So from the image sensor 210 and converts the output signal So into an integrated signal Si. In practice, the image processor 220 further converts the output signal So into the integrated signal Si through the adc 221, i.e., the output signal So may be analog data, and the integrated signal Si may be digital data. However, the present invention is not limited thereto.

In the embodiment, the image processor 220 further respectively intercepts a first signal SR and a second signal SS corresponding to the integration signal Si according to the horizontal line scanning period, and obtains image pixel data by calculating the first signal SR and the second signal SS.

For example, the integrated signal Si is composed of a plurality of data, and the integrated signal Si is herein divided into six portions (not shown), each portion further has a plurality of data, and the data may be pixels or potential values. In practice, the output signal So is output according to and corresponding to the horizontal line scanning period H, and therefore the integration signal Si further corresponds to the horizontal line scanning period H. The six portions of the integrated signal Si correspond to six pulse periods respectively.

In the present embodiment, the image processor 220 obtains a first synchronization signal (not shown), a first blanking signal (not shown), a first signal SR, a second synchronization signal (not shown), a second blanking signal (not shown) and a second signal SS sequentially by the signal capturing unit 222 capturing six portions of the corresponding integration signal Si according to six pulse periods of the horizontal line scanning period H. Wherein the first and second synchronization signals correspond to the first and second signals SR and SS, respectively; for example, the video processor 220 respectively intercepts a first portion (not shown) and a second portion (not shown) of the corresponding integrated signal Si according to the horizontal line scanning period H by the signal intercepting unit 222 to obtain the first signal SR and the second signal SS. Wherein, the first and second sync signals do not overlap with the first and second signals SR and SS, and even more, the first and second blanking signals do not overlap with the first and second sync signals, SR and SS. The data of the first blanking signal and the second blanking signal can be blank data respectively, so that the first signal SR and the second signal SS can be transmitted synchronously and stably in coordination with the pulse CLK.

In one embodiment, the video processor 220 further includes a comparing unit 224, wherein the comparing unit 224 further receives the first synchronization signal and the second synchronization signal, determines whether the first synchronization signal and the second synchronization signal are greater than a threshold, and outputs a count signal (not shown) when the first synchronization signal and the second synchronization signal are both greater than a threshold. The first and second synchronous signals may be respectively a potential value.

For example, a horizontal line period H includes a default unit pulse CLK, such as N pulses CLK, the processor 220 starts counting every N pulses CLK according to the counting signal to be a horizontal line period H, and the processor 220 further knows to start the first pulse CLK according to the first and second synchronization signals, so as to intercept one of the portions of the corresponding integration signal Si corresponding to one of the pulse periods, i.e., the first signal SR and the second signal SS during the Mth pulse CLK.

In other words, in the present embodiment, the first synchronization signal, the first blanking signal, the first signal SR, the second synchronization signal, the second blanking signal and the second signal SS form the integrated signal Si in sequence.

In one embodiment, the operation unit 223 of the image processor 220 performs a difference calculation on the first signal SR and the second signal SS to obtain image pixel data. And the pixels of one horizontal scan line (not shown) are one image pixel data, for example, three hundred twenty four pixels. The image pixel data is pixels of horizontal scan lines, and the image processor 220 further obtains an image frame F through the operation unit 223 according to a vertical line scan period (not shown) and two hundred forty four horizontal line scan periods H. Therefore, the image processing system 200 can obtain the pixels of an image frame F by the cooperation and calculation of the image sensor 210 and the image processor 220 in the horizontal line scanning period H and the vertical line scanning period H, and the pixels of the image frame F are about three hundred twenty four pixels of each horizontal scanning line multiplied by two hundred forty four horizontal scanning lines to obtain seventy thousand, nine thousand zero and fifty six pixels.

In summary, the image sensor 210 only uses four pads for transmitting and receiving and converts a plurality of light beams into the output signal So, So the volume of the image sensor 210 can be reduced, and the transmission protocol format and the output protocol format of the output signal So can be determined according to the requirement, and the processing from the output signal So to the final output image frame F is completed by the image processor 220 arranged at the rear end, and only the image sensor 210 is arranged at the front end 130 of the endoscope 100, 100 ', and other image processing related components such as the image processor 220 are arranged in the handle 120 of the endoscope 100 or the connected host 300 ', So the whole endoscope 100, 100 ' can be reduced due to the reduction of the volume of the image sensor 210, and the reduction of the image sensor 210 is not limited, or the captured image can be processed perfectly, So the volume of the image sensor 210 is reduced, and the cost can be saved, further increase the image resolution to maintain the image quality.

Naturally, the present invention can be embodied in many other forms without departing from the spirit or essential attributes thereof, and it should be understood that various changes and modifications can be made by one skilled in the art without departing from the spirit or essential attributes thereof, and it is intended that all such changes and modifications be considered as within the scope of the appended claims.

Claims (9)

1. An endoscope comprising a front end portion, an insertion tube and a handle connected in sequence, and connected to a main body, the endoscope comprising:

the image sensor is arranged at the front end part and comprises four bonding pads, the four bonding pads of the image sensor are respectively a power receiving bonding pad, a grounding bonding pad, a pulse receiving bonding pad and an output bonding pad, a horizontal line scanning period is received through the power receiving bonding pad, and the image sensor receives and converts a plurality of light beams and corresponds to the horizontal line scanning period so as to output an output signal through the output bonding pad; and

the image processor is arranged in the handle or the host, is electrically connected with the image sensor, converts the output signal into an integrated signal, respectively intercepts a first signal and a second signal corresponding to the integrated signal according to the horizontal line scanning period, and obtains image pixel data by calculating the first signal and the second signal;

the camera shooting assembly is provided with a camera and a second circuit board, and the power supply bonding pad and the grounding bonding pad are respectively connected with and receive a power supply and a grounding power supply provided by the second circuit board.

2. The endoscope of claim 1, wherein the image sensor and the image processor further comprise an image processing system.

3. The endoscope of claim 1, wherein the image processor further comprises a signal clipping unit for clipping a first portion and a second portion of the integrated signal according to the horizontal line scanning period to obtain the first signal and the second signal.

4. The endoscope of claim 1, wherein the image processor further comprises an arithmetic unit, and the image pixel data is obtained by the arithmetic unit through a difference calculation of the first signal and the second signal.

5. The endoscope of claim 1, wherein the image processor further comprises an analog-to-digital converter, the analog-to-digital converter converting the output signal to the integrated signal.

6. The endoscope of claim 1, wherein the image processor further comprises a signal clipping unit for clipping a first synchronization signal and a second synchronization signal respectively corresponding to the integrated signal and the first signal and the second signal according to the horizontal line scanning period, the first synchronization signal and the second synchronization signal being non-overlapping with the first signal and the second signal.

7. The endoscope of claim 6, wherein the image processor further comprises a signal clipping unit for clipping a first blanking signal and a second blanking signal corresponding to the integrated signal according to the horizontal line scanning period, respectively, wherein the first blanking signal and the second blanking signal are not overlapped with the first synchronization signal, the second synchronization signal, the first signal and the second signal.

8. The endoscope of claim 1, further comprising an insertion tube and a handle, wherein the distal portion, the insertion tube and the handle are further interconnected in sequence, and wherein the image processor is disposed on the handle.

9. The endoscope of claim 1, wherein the endoscope is further electrically connected to a host, and the image processor is disposed on the host.

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