EP2719617A1 - Safety device for underwater diving - Google Patents

Abstract

The device has a portable computer (1) receiving and exploiting signals from a gas bubble flow measuring sensor e.g. Doppler sensor (2), via a connector (3), where the computer is provided with a wireless connection emitter-receiver circuit (19) e.g. radio emitter-receiver circuit. A functional fixation and coupling strap (2A) is fixed and coupled to a body of a diver i.e. underwater working diver using a hypobaric case. The computer provides an alarm signal through a display (9) if a measured gas bubble flow level exceeds a predetermined safety threshold.

Description

The present invention relates to scuba diving with bottles.

A diver wearing a scuba diving equipment and who has descended several tens of meters below the surface must respect a lift profile, that is to say, limit its average speed of ascent. Indeed, during the descent, the increasing pressure causes an increasing dissolution of the inhaled gas in the tissues irrigated by the blood, that is to say a storage which grows with the depth and with the duration.

During the ascent, the ambient pressure will obviously decrease and the opposite phenomenon will occur. If this rise is too fast, the desaturation of the dissolved gas in the tissues causes the formation of bubbles. If they come to represent a large volume, they can cause serious disorders or even injuries since they represent an additional volume, which will compress the neighboring tissues. The limbs, lungs and even the central nervous system may be affected. The obstruction of the blood vessels by venous or arterial bubbles is responsible for the most serious consequences.

Classically, the diver wears a diving computer on the wrist that calculates an integral time and dive depth, during the ascent, read a previously memorized ascent table, displaying the durations to be respected for a series of levels of decompression at stepped depths.

The manufacturer of the computer establishes the rise time profile table from an algorithm derived from a gas exchange modeling within the tissues. This algorithm is constructed from theoretical and experimental data, ie physical, physiological and biological data.

However, it turns out that there is still a lot of diving accidents while the diver considered respected the decompression table. In fact, the individual susceptibility of each diver, in particular his physical condition on the day of the dive, constitutes an important factor of uncertainty as to the validity of the table.

The present invention aims to reduce this uncertainty, and therefore the associated risk.

For this purpose, the invention firstly relates to a safety device for scuba diving, according to claim 1.

This device can be used by a diver equipped with a bottle-based breathing apparatus with possibly a recycling device, or a diver using a narghile or a dive device per system, ie a hyperbaric chamber and a mobile bell performing the function of underwater elevator. It can also be used by anyone in decompression phase in a hypobaric box, for example for an astronaut before a spacewalk.

The computer advantageously contains calculation circuits of a base table, decompression stop times, and a central unit is arranged to modulate each duration by adding a supplement calculated according to an increasing function of the flow measurement. As explained above, the numerical decompression time information facilitates the respect of a determined recovery profile, and the device serves to indicate that this profile is not respected or that it is currently unsuitable for the diver considered. The table can take into account a gas reserve value calculated by measuring and integrating the flow of gas consumed from a bottle of known capacity, so as to provide, in case of near exhaustion of the reserve, a maximum ascent rate remaining compatible with the risk of bubbles. The above modulation can relate to zero-time stages, that is to say that intermediate levels can be added between the non-zero duration stages.

The central unit can then be arranged to change, with storage, the base table according to said modulation.

It is thus constituted a sort of history of corrections made. Since, however, these corrections depend in part on the physical condition of the diver on the day in question, they are therefore not totally valid from one day to the next. The evolution "in function" of the modulation therefore preferably represents a damped correction, that is to say partial correction of the table with respect to the supplement calculated above. It is then a low-pass filtering, that is to say an integrating filter function whose output tends to stall gradually from one dive to another, on the said supplement, knowing that the latter will tend to decrease since the device will gradually adapt to the reactions of the diver, in terms of bubble generation.

The fixing means are advantageously arranged so that the flow sensor is coupled to a vascular site.

For example, venous blood flow can be detected at the level of the right heart cavities, for example at the level of the pulmonary artery or at sensing arterial blood flow at the carotid or temporal level. The connection means preferably comprise a wireless link transmitter, for example acoustic or electromagnetic signals.

This avoids the annoyance of a data link wire.

In a particular application, the device is associated with a database for debugging a universal dive time profile, the device comprising storage means for storing a history of a decompression time profile followed by the diver, in association with the possible alarm signals on risk sections of the profile alternating with safety sections, and the database being arranged to collect the historical data of said device as well as other same devices, and for determine an envelope curve of the sections at risk.

The database may be internal to the computer or external if the computing power required exceeds that of a conventional microprocessor. In such a case, the computer has connection circuits with the database, for example to access via the Internet, or even the storage means are removable, for example a magnetic bubble memory, which is temporarily transferred into the database to be copied. The history will therefore indicate which sections are safe and which sections are at risk, associated with the presence of the alarm signal.

The history can for example carry environmental data such as pressure or level of bubble flow, and individual data such as height, weight, age of the diver.

Each history is therefore equivalent to an equation of a number of parameters or variables such as those indicated above. Having then a large number of such equations, we can perform a regression calculation to estimate the weight to assign to each variable and even the correlations that may exist between some of them. The regression calculation consists of setting a value a priori to each variable, which gives a result of a priori equation wrong for most of these. In a first step, by varying one of the variables, it is then possible to determine an optimal local value for which the sum of the errors of the equations is minimal. In a second step, we do the same for a second variable. In a third step, we do the same for a third variable, or else we refine the local optimum value of the first variable, which may have been modified by the changes made to the second variable. The set of variables is thus processed, with if necessary several passes for each variable, as indicated. This regression analysis Thus, it is possible to dissociate the causal effect of each variable, that is to say to discern eigenvectors in a vector space constituted by these variables. The causal effect above is in particular the level of bubbles.

The database thus enables an operator, human or electronic, by compiling the histories of several such devices, to determine the envelope curve of the sections at risk. It is therefore a collection of knowledge of causal effects above. From there, a user can define any desired profile universal decompression table statistically tolerated by the vast majority of possible divers, since the database will indicate any possible risk section of this profile. A margin of safety with respect to the envelope curve is preferably provided, for example an additional step time is added to take account of isolated cases of future "outsized" divers, that is to say whose fabrics would be a few more prone to prematurely produce bubbles.

To define the envelope curve, so to take into account each risk segment, which defines a range of diving depths on which there is alarm and the speed of recovery in it, it is also necessary to take into account the part the beginning of the history, which precedes the segment, since the quantity stored of the breathing gas depends on the different depths reached and the corresponding duration. In other words, the same speed of ascent between two levels may, from one dive to another, cause or not an alarm, depending on whether the dive was deep and / or of long duration or, respectively, shallow and / or short.

• la figure 1 en est un diagramme schématique des éléments constitutifs, et
• la figure 2 est un synoptique illustrant les calculs effectués dans le dispositif.

The invention will be better understood with the aid of the following description of an embodiment of a safety device according to the invention, with reference to the appended drawing, in which:

• the figure 1 is a schematic diagram of the constituent elements, and
• the figure 2 is a block diagram illustrating the calculations made in the device.

The figure 1 represents a portable computer 1 whose case is provided with a bracelet 1A so that a plunger can easily carry it and consult a display 9 of decompression stops and safety or alarm signals. The portable computer 1 is even portable here, that is to say that it only has a weight of a few hundred grams, knowing however that it is the "limited volume" aspect that is essential. for convenience of use, since the pressure of the water exerts an upward force, less than, equal to or greater than the weight. There is also provided a keyboard 8 for interrogating a central unit 11, and for establishing an external connection by means of transceiver circuits 19. The circuits 19 are preferably acoustic type for connections through water and preferably radio for connections in the air. It can be provided to have both types of circuits 19.

Basically, the invention aims to provide an alarm signal that gas bubbles appear in the body of the diver, which is therefore in the decompression phase by surface rise, and that these bubbles have reached an alarming global volume . The diver is implicitly invited to interrupt his ascent to the surface. As publications relating to diving, the following titles may be cited: Physiology and medicin of diving ", 5th edition, 2003, authors Bennett and Elliot, editors Alf O Brubakk and Tom S Neuman, SAUNDERS collection ; " Physiology and medicine of diving ", authors Broussolle and Meliet, Editions Ellipses, 2006 ; Automatic evaluation of the degree of blood bubbles: parametric methods, in: Signal processing, FR, vol. 9, No. 2, 1992, pages 201-210, GRETSI editor, Saint-Martin d'Hères, France ; " On the Use of a Bubble Training Model to Calculate Diving Tables, "Aviation, Space, and Environnment Medicine, authors from Yount, DC Hoffman .

The computer 1 is informed about it by a sensor capable of detecting these bubbles and measuring their importance. In this example, this detection is carried out by a sound measurement carried out by means of a Doppler sensor 2 whose housing is provided with a strap 2A to hold the sensor 2 on a region of the body in which the noise of blood circulation, possibly affected by the presence of gas bubbles. Here, the strap 2A holds the sound sensor 2 on the chest, near the right heart cavity or pulmonary artery, that is to say on the left edge of the sternum.

The noise level is usually classified into five ranges, from a 0 degree, to a total absence of bubbles, a degree 1, to presence of isolated bubbles, a degree 2, to presence of bubbles in less than half of the cardiac cycles , a degree 3, with bubbles in all heart cycles without covering the heart sounds, and a degree 4, for which the bubbles cover the sounds of the heart. Bubble flow measurement can be refined by using celerity indices or other mathematical quantizers.

The computer 1 comprises a time base 10 timing the operation of the central unit 11 associated with calculation circuits 12 of a base table which provides decompression stop times. These durations are calculated according to a weighted accumulation of each duration of maintenance at the different depths of dive reached. The weighting takes into account the fact that the storage of dissolved gases in the tissues does not increase linearly with the pressure. In addition, as this storage is carried out gradually, it increases with the duration of maintenance at a given depth.

The calculation circuits 12 are therefore a multivariable weighting integrator, that is to say pressure and duration, which cyclically calculates the quantity of inhaled gas which is supposed to be dissolved in the tissues. The parameters allowing this calculation were previously determined empirically from theoretical data, specifically biological, physiological and mathematical, and experimental data, to form an integration calculation algorithm. (reference)

When the diver wants to go back to the surface, he can see, on the display 9, the depth of a lower decompression stop, at which it can reassemble in principle without danger, and the minimum time during which it must remain there . Then, the computer 1 having thus verified that the bearing has been respected, in pressure and in duration, it validates the display of a next bearing, to thus begin a series of decompression cycles and finally allow the ascent up to the surface.

The ambient pressure is provided by a sensor 4 associated with the computer 1 and connected at the output by a connection 5 here wired, or even integrated therewith.

The blood flow sensor 2 provides a signal reflecting the acoustic level of noise at the thorax. In particular, this noise can partly come from the circulation of a stream of gas bubbles escaping from the tissues where the breathing gas has been stored. A corresponding signal is transmitted via a link 3, for example wired or preferably radio, that is to say an electromagnetic transmitter, to a corresponding receiver 13 connected at the output to a first input of a comparator 15 of the central unit 11, a second input is controlled by a high noise threshold memory 14. The high threshold value here represents a noise corresponding to the degree 1 above, possibly the degree 2.

It can be provided a selective filter, bandpass, to eliminate a band of the acoustic spectrum not affected by the noise of the flow of circulating bubbles. The comparator 15 thus performs a processing of the received electrical signal, representing a sound signal emitted by the Doppler probe 2 and returned thereto by a target vascular zone, with a significant frequency shift of the bubble density level. This offset is thus translated into a level of bubble flow by the comparator 15 to output an alarm signal if the measured noise level exceeds the high threshold. In such a case, the alarm signal, binary, is transformed into a signal that can be displayed on the display 9, such as for example a signal for lighting a warning light or an alarm icon. However, it may be provided, in addition to or instead, any other type of human-machine relationship signal, for example a control signal of a vibrator.

Apart from the purely warning aspect, it can also be expected that the alarm signal from the comparator 15 causes restrictive actions, that is to say the triggering of a device tending to limit or prevent the immediate continuation of the recovery to the surface. This triggering can however be delayed, that is to say intervene only if the alarm signal remains for a certain time. It may also be provided that it is necessary to detect the crossing of a maximum threshold, super-alarm, therefore with a higher bubble flow than for the alarm threshold, to trigger the actions of securing the diver.

One can for example think of a mini-ballast forming a swim bladder 7 which will open to lose buoyancy device, and therefore the diver. The alarm signal then controls a mini electric motor for opening a venting valve.

The advantage of such an active device is that the diver is thus protected even if he does not react to the invitation to temper his ascent speed. This is particularly interesting if for some reason the diver is unconscious.

It can then be provided a dual ballast device, a cylinder of pressurized gas will inflate, through a controlled inlet valve, the swim bladder 7 if the diver descends a certain depth from the depth to which intervened the alarm.

In short, it is thus possible to establish a superior "safety net" against embolism, or even several at different pressures, and to establish the same number of "nets" lower, against drowning by immersion at great depth.

In this example, in addition to the alarm signal, which is a binary information signaling to the diver that he has reached a superior safety barrier against embolism, the computer 1 provides the decompression stop information of the circuits 12 but modulating them to add an additional duration at any temporally close stage so that the alarm signal has normally disappeared at the end of the extension of the bearing. The bearing considered is therefore extended by an additional duration which is calculated according to stored parameters, previously defined by tests, this duration being all the greater as the measurement of the level of bubble flow is raised. It can be expected that the computer 1 provides an additional bearing, that is to say intermediate or at one end of the lift profile.

It is here provided that the possible alarms, during a succession of dives, cause a personalization of the data of the base table of the circuits 12. Precisely, it is the supplements, calculated each time, bearings that will be integrated, by means of said stored parameters, in the durations of the original bearings as initially stored. The central unit 11 will therefore evolve, with storage, the base table of the circuits 12 according to the modulation of duration that represent the above supplements.

Thus, the central unit 11 cyclically supplies a corrected step duration value, if it is the case, to a buffer memory 16 connected at the output to a first input of a low-pass filter 17 supplying a memory 18 of parameters of adjustment of the lift profile. The low-pass filter 17 is therefore an integrator that allows only a progressive updating of the parameter memory 18, that is to say that it will take several dives, with substantially the same length of time supplements. level, so that these supplements are well taken into account. For example, the data in the parameter memory 18 may be applied to a second input of the low-pass filter 17, with a gain of a multiplicative factor 0.8 while the counterpart data on the first input will be weighted by a factor of 0 2. The rate of taking into account of the supplements of duration is here of 20% each time. The parameter memory 18, with content thus adaptive, will therefore, in loopback, supply the circuits 12.

However, it may be possible to allow a reduction in the duration of a stopover, as long as a predefined floor value is not exceeded. In such a case, it may be provided to increase the time constant of the low-pass filter 17, i.e. to detect the sign of the correction arriving at the first input to switch the respective gains of the first and second entries, for example 0.95 and 0.05. The above sign thus controls the addressing of a memory with two positions for respectively the two pairs of gains above, this memory controlling two multiplier circuits for the two respective inputs.

The data in the parameter memory 18 may be the decompression stop durations, that is to say the final data, to be displayed, or the parameters mentioned above for calculating these durations by means of algorithms. taking into account the immersion time at each depth and possibly a measured bubble level, these two variables being also stored in the parameter memory 18.

The figure 2 is a block diagram illustrating the calculations carried out in the calculation circuits 12, in association with the parameter memory 18. The reference 102 designates a gaseous exchange model, for example the standard Haldane model or a derivative model, that is to say an algorithm that is parametrized by parameters (functional block 101, in memory 18) of the model such as a number of compartments representing the different tissues of the human body and values of the decay period of the decay period. saturation of these various compartments. In this model, a compartment represents a typical tissue, that is to say a mathematical entity having the same perfusion rate and a homogeneous distribution of the dissolved gases, and whose behavior is different from neighboring tissues. Each tissue or compartment is characterized by a desaturation time constant, expressed for example in half-life time of the presence of dissolved gas. The functional block 100 represents the measured values of pressure, throughout the dive, and duration associated with each pressure. It is therefore these two variables that will be processed by the gaseous exchange model block 102 to provide a vector value that will be representative of the gas discharge generated by each of the different tissues of the model, at a given moment.

A function block 104, of the security criterion model according to the invention, located downstream of the model block 102, performs the calculations indicated to provide an alarm and also to determine an admissible "safe" ascent profile, from the above vector value and the measurement of the bubble level provided by the Doppler sensor 2. The operation of the security model block 104 is parameterized by the security threshold value, in the memory 18, here a function block 103. In addition, it is also taken into account, in this example, predetermined safety parameters such as a critical volume value, that is to say the permissible limit of degassing of all said compartments of the body, or still a critical supersaturation coefficient.

In a particular application, the block 102 is arranged to receive the signals of the Doppler probe 2, which can also constitute a value representing the gas discharge of the different compartments. These signals can advantageously be processed according to an algorithm of a so-called bubble growth model, an illustration being the VPM (Variable Permeability Model) model, which can be found in " Computation of reverse dive profiles contrasts and comparison "by BR Wienke, publisher Lang and Lehner, Proceedings of the Dive Profile Workshop, Washington, Smithsonian Institution, 1999 , possibly corroborating or complementing the vector value cited above.

More generally, the parameter memory 18 constitutes a personalized history of the reactions of the diver considered. Apart from the real-time operation described above, aimed at precisely adapting the dive table according to the reactions of the diver considered, this history can be emitted to the outside to be integrated with homologous histories established by other same devices. used by other divers, to constitute a database 50 having a statistical value as to the reactions of the human body. Preferably after surfacing, for convenience, the content of the parameter memory 18 is transmitted to the database 50, by means of the radio circuits 19, or by an undefined port, for connection with a transmission network. data 100, for example the network of the Internet. Alternatively, the parameter memory 18 is removably mounted to be temporarily transferred into the database 50, or a link reader with the network 100, for the purpose of copying its history. The parameter memory 18 is for example a flash memory or a mini-magnetic disk. The device according to the invention is therefore a tool for debugging conventional tables.

Such a database 50 thus makes it possible to refine the decompression stop durations established a priori, by calculation, in conventional dive computers. Thus, if one realizes that for a large number of histories of as many divers, for example 30 or 100, no bubble appears for a given lift profile, we can reduce the duration of the bearings . Measurement campaigns for the different provisional editions of the table of durations will thus make it possible to determine the "lower limit" durations of stage from which bubbles begin to appear, and the final table, universal, will be established taking a margin of safety, by increasing these durations "low limits". It is thus overall an iterative optimization which makes it possible to avoid unnecessarily imposing too long bearings while ensuring that a Gaussian, representing the reaction thresholds by bubbles to the decompression of the population of divers thus monitored, is located (almost) entirely on the side of durations above the threshold for the most sensitive diver, that is to say the most reactive, decompression.

In this example, the central unit 11 also performs a second monitoring of the volume level of the bubbles in the blood according to the principle explained above, but with a permissible level of noise threshold below the alarm threshold. In practice, the threshold memory 14 contains the two thresholds and the comparator 15 operates alternately. The principle of second surveillance, however, involves a second parameter, which is the pressure, and, specifically, the second monitoring is only carried out for ambient pressures exceeding a certain threshold, for example 1 overpressure atmosphere, that is to say approximately more than 10 meters deep. Indeed, below 10 meters, the appearance of bubbles in the blood should not occur normally. If this is the case, it means that you are in an abnormal condition. This information is therefore displayed on the display 9. This is however a simple alert, because there is no medical risk. The diver is simply informed that there is a risk that the alarm will occur if he continues to ascend. He can thus avoid going to "bump" in the high "security barrier".

The alarm, or even the alarm, can also be transmitted to remote receivers by means of the transceiver circuits 19, for example devices such as this one, whose computer is intended to also display the alarms of the receivers. "neighbor" devices. The above emission can be automatic or commanded by the keyboard 8. The divers of a group can thus be rescued early, if necessary, especially if an alarm remains beyond a maximum threshold duration . A surface monitor can also be alerted.

An interesting application of the device is related to the fact that a diver raised to the surface can easily continue to wear for for example one to three hours, because the risk of excessive level of gas bubbles can still occur during this period.

In this connection, the device can in particular be used in a hyperbaric chamber, in the decompression phase. Indeed, the first parameter taken into account is the pressure, and the value of this parameter results from the pressure of the ambient fluid, that is to say the water, when diving, or the air, free or in box .

In the case of the hyperbaric chamber, the computer 1 can then be operated by an "external" person, that is to say, responsible for managing the decompression time profile of the box. In such a case, it is convenient for the link 3 to have a range sufficient to make it possible to place the computer 1, or at least the display 9, outside the box. In the case of the radio link 3, a window of the box, made of glass or the like, makes it possible to maintain a gap in the Faraday cage that it constitutes if it is otherwise metallic. If it is planned to deport all the functions of the computer 1 to the outside of the box, the latter can therefore no longer be portable, and for example be portable only, that is to say with a weight that can reach several kilograms. In such a case, these functions can be integrated into a conventional PC or a box management computer, equipped with the desired software, with in particular two input ports for respectively the gas flow level measurement link 3 and for the internal pressure of the box, the latter being provided by the pressure sensor 4 or by electronic equipment controlling the box.

Claims (6)

Safety device for scuba diving, comprising a laptop (1) for receiving and operating signals, comprising: a sensor (2) for measuring gas bubbles generated in the body of a plunger, the sensor comprising means (2A) for fixing and functional coupling to the body of a plunger, connecting means (3) between the computer (1) and the sensor (2), the computer (1) containing circuits (12) for calculating a base table, of decompression stop duration, and a central unit (11) arranged to modulate each duration by adding a supplement calculated according to an increasing function of the importance of the measurement of the bubbles. Device according to claim 1, wherein the computer (1) is arranged to provide an alarm signal through alarm means (9) if the level of the importance of the measured bubbles exceeds a predetermined safety threshold. Safety method for scuba diving using a portable computer (1) receiving, through means for connecting and operating signals and a central unit (11) associated with circuits (12) for calculating a base table that provides decompression stop data, such as: detecting the gas bubbles appearing in a body of a plunger by a sensor which informs the computer (1); - the importance of these bubbles is measured; and modulating a duration of at least one decompression stop by adding a supplement according to an increasing function of the measurement of the importance of the bubbles. The method of claim 3, wherein an alarm signal is provided through alarm means if a measured bubble magnitude level exceeds a predetermined safety threshold. A method according to claim 3, wherein the duration of at least one decompression stop is modulated by adding a supplement according to historical measurements of the importance of the bubbles, performed during previous dives of the diver. The method of claim 3, wherein the duration of at least one decompression stop is modulated by adding a supplement according to measurements of the importance of the bubbles performed in real time during the dive comprising said decompression stop.

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