KR20210054268A - An apparatus of capsule endoscope - Google Patents

Abstract

The disclosed invention relates to a capsule endoscope device which comprises: a capsule body having a circumferential surface of a cylindrical case forming a sound window; an ultrasonic wave transducer embedded in the capsule body and emitting an ultrasonic wave rotating 360° toward the sound window; and at least one marker formed in a direction transverse to a circumferential surface to cover a portion of the sound window and reflecting at least a portion of the ultrasonic wave incident on the sound window. The intensity of the ultrasonic wave reflected from the marker is different from the intensity of the ultrasonic wave reflected from the sound window.

Description

Capsule Endoscopy {AN APPARATUS OF CAPSULE ENDOSCOPE}

The present invention relates to a capsule endoscope device, and more particularly, to a capsule endoscope device capable of ensuring good restoration of a two-dimensional ultrasound image while reducing the number of essential parts mounted in a limited space of an oral capsule endoscope device. .

The human digestive system is largely divided into the esophagus, stomach, small intestine and large intestine. Typically, the esophagus and stomach are observed with an upper gastrointestinal endoscope that can be inserted up to the distal portion of the duodenum, and the large intestine is observed with a colonoscopy that can observe the end of the small intestine, the ileum.

However, in the case of the small intestine, an endoscope for which diagnosis and treatment methods have been established has not yet been established. Therefore, in the past, various radiographic diagnostic methods, including small intestine barium angiography and CT scan, have been applied to the small intestine, but the diagnosis rate for small intestinal diseases is quite low.

In recent years, interest in oral capsule endoscopy devices is increasing in order to compensate for the inconvenience and limitations of endoscopy and radiographic diagnostic methods. The capsule endoscopy device is an independent endoscopic device in the form of a small capsule that can be swallowed and introduced into the digestive tract as an oral type. The capsule endoscope device has a small camera and/or an ultrasonic transducer built in, and through this, a visible light image or an ultrasound image of the esophagus, stomach, small intestine, and large intestine is provided.

The capsule endoscope device is also an electric/electronic device equipped with a small camera or ultrasonic transducer, a communication module for receiving various control signals sent by an external controller and transmitting the captured image outside the human body, and a control module. It will have a built-in battery to provide it. However, since the oral capsule endoscopy device has a small size that can be swallowed by a human, its mounting space is very limited. If various devices such as ultrasonic transducers are mounted here, the power that the battery can store is extremely limited.

The utilization of the capsule endoscope device is greatly affected by how long it can be continuously operated inside the human body. Since the size expansion of the oral capsule endoscope device is also limited, and the performance of the battery is difficult to improve dramatically, it is a realistic way to reduce the amount of power consumed by the capsule endoscope device itself, and multi-faceted studies are required for this.

Korean Patent Registration No. 10-1911470 (Registered October 18, 2018)

An object of the present invention is to reduce power consumption and secure a free space by newly designing an internal configuration of an oral capsule endoscope device, particularly a capsule endoscope device incorporating an ultrasonic transducer.

The present invention relates to a capsule endoscope apparatus, comprising: a capsule body in which a circumferential surface of a cylindrical case forms an acoustic window; and, an ultrasonic transducer embedded in the capsule body and emitting ultrasonic waves rotating 360° toward the acoustic window; And at least one marker formed in a direction crossing the circumferential surface so as to cover a part of the acoustic window and reflecting at least a portion of the ultrasonic wave incident on the acoustic window. Including, Intensity of the ultrasonic wave reflected from the marker Is different from the intensity of ultrasonic waves reflected from the acoustic window.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a motor disposed on the bottom of any one of the capsule body; And a reflector mounted on the rotating shaft of the motor, wherein the ultrasonic transducer is disposed on the other bottom of the capsule body so as to face the motor, and the reflector is 360° for ultrasonic waves emitted from the ultrasonic transducer. As it rotates, it reflects into the acoustic window.

And, in one embodiment of the present invention, the marker is formed in a bar shape that crosses a circular trajectory formed by the ultrasonic transducer for the acoustic window, and the reflection coefficient of the marker and the acoustic window The reflection coefficient of is characterized by different.

In addition, an impedance matching liquid may be filled around a path through which the ultrasonic waves emitted from the ultrasonic transducer proceed to the acoustic window.

Here, the ultrasonic wave reflected from the marker may be used as a starting point of the 360° rotation, and when the ultrasonic wave reflected from the marker is detected again as the ending point of the 360° rotation.

In addition, the angular speed of the motor may be determined based on a time elapsed while the ultrasonic waves reflected by the marker are detected twice.

Depending on the embodiment, the marker may be provided with a plurality of N (N is a natural number of 2 or more). In this case, when the ultrasonic wave reflected from the marker is detected N+1 times, the end point of the 360° rotation is used. do.

In addition, the angular speed for each section of the motor may be determined based on a time elapsed while the ultrasonic waves reflected by the marker are detected twice.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the ultrasonic transducer is made of a single ultrasonic element, and accordingly, a 2D ultrasonic image is reconstructed from the echo ultrasonic wave received by the ultrasonic transducer.

In addition, at least one of the plurality of bar-shaped markers may be configured to have a different width across the circular trajectory compared to other markers, and the number of ultrasonic waves reflected from the marker may vary due to the difference in width of the marker. do.

In addition, an angle formed by at least one pair of adjacent markers among the plurality of markers may be configured to be different from an angle formed by another pair.

The capsule endoscope device of the present invention having the configuration as described above can replace the encoder by excluding the encoder used for the restoration of the conventional ultrasound image and having a marker in the acoustic window, so that the space as much as the encoder is excluded is saved. As it can be used to secure capacity, it is very effective for long-term operation of the capsule endoscope device.

In addition, as the power consumed by the encoder itself disappears and some weight of the encoder does not act as a load on the motor, it becomes very advantageous in terms of power management of the capsule endoscope device.

1 is a view showing the overall appearance of a capsule endoscope device according to the present invention.
Figure 2 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line "AA" of Figure 1;
Fig. 3 is a diagram explaining the principle of generating a reference signal by a marker provided in an acoustic window.
4 is a view showing another embodiment in which a plurality of markers are provided in FIG. 3.

The present invention is intended to illustrate specific embodiments and to be described in detail in the detailed description, since various transformations can be applied and various embodiments can be provided. However, this is not intended to limit the present invention to a specific embodiment, it should be understood to include all conversions, equivalents, and substitutes included in the spirit and scope of the present invention.

The terms used in the present invention are used only to describe specific embodiments, and are not intended to limit the present invention. Singular expressions include plural expressions unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. In the present invention, terms such as'include' or'have' are intended to designate the presence of features, numbers, steps, actions, components, parts, or a combination thereof described in the specification, but one or more other features. It is to be understood that the presence or addition of elements or numbers, steps, actions, components, parts, or combinations thereof does not preclude in advance.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. In this case, it should be noted that the same components in the accompanying drawings are indicated by the same reference numerals as possible. In addition, detailed descriptions of known functions and configurations that may obscure the subject matter of the present invention will be omitted. For the same reason, some elements in the accompanying drawings are exaggerated, omitted, or schematically illustrated.

FIG. 1 is a view showing the overall appearance of a capsule endoscope apparatus 10 according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view taken along line “A-A” of FIG. 1. With reference to the drawings, the present invention will be described in detail. For reference, in the accompanying drawings, illustration of a battery that is not necessary for the description of the present invention is omitted.

First, the capsule endoscope apparatus 10 of the present invention can provide an ultrasound image inside the digestive tract, and the present invention will be described based on this. In the present invention, an ultrasonic transducer 300 for acquiring an ultrasonic image is built-in. If necessary, a small camera for providing a visible light image may also be built-in. In other words, it is not excluded that the capsule endoscope apparatus 10 of the present invention further includes other components not explicitly described as provided in the embodiments.

As shown, the capsule endoscope apparatus 10 of the present invention includes a capsule body 100 made of a cylindrical case. The capsule body 100 houses various components such as the ultrasonic transducer 300 and provides a space for protecting them from the external environment. In addition, the circumferential surface of the cylindrical case forms an acoustic window 110, and serves as a window through which the ultrasonic waves emitted from the ultrasonic transducer 300 are projected to the outside, and the echo ultrasonic waves reflected from the inner wall of the digestive tract. Serves as a window incident on the ultrasonic transducer 300 again.

Depending on the embodiment, the acoustic window 110 also functions as an optical window, and may function as a window through which visible light passes when a small camera (not shown) is built-in.

In addition, a motor 200 is disposed on one bottom of the capsule body 100, and an ultrasonic transducer 300 is disposed on the other bottom to face the motor 200.

The reflector 400 is mounted on the rotation shaft 210 of the motor 200 so that the reflector 400 rotates when the motor 200 is driven, and accordingly, the ultrasonic transformer facing the motor 200 and the reflector 400 The ultrasonic wave emitted from the transducer 300 is bent to the side by the reflector 400 rotating 360°. Accordingly, when the motor 200 and the ultrasonic transducer 300 are driven, the ultrasonic waves are projected to the outside while drawing a circular trajectory along the cylindrical acoustic window 110. In general, the reflector 400 has a 45° reflective surface.

Here, the illustrated embodiment shows that while the reflector 400 is rotated by the motor 200, the opposite ultrasonic transducer 300 emits ultrasonic waves toward the reflector 400 to create a 360° ultrasonic trajectory. However, as the ultrasonic transducer 300 is installed on the rotation shaft 210 of the motor 200, an embodiment in which the ultrasonic transducer 300 directly emits ultrasonic waves toward the acoustic window 110 at a certain angle range is also possible.

In addition, when the ultrasonic transducer 300 is formed of a single ultrasonic element, echoed ultrasonic waves reflected by an external object and received by the ultrasonic transducer 300 may be processed to restore a 2D ultrasonic image. In addition, if the ultrasonic transducer 300 is composed of a two-dimensional array of single ultrasonic elements, the reconstructed ultrasonic image is made as a three-dimensional image.

Here, in order to reconstruct a 2D or 3D ultrasound image by processing the echo ultrasound, it is necessary to determine or know the reference echo ultrasound from among a plurality of echo ultrasound waves. That is, the ultrasonic image can be restored only when numerous echo ultrasonic waves continuously received by the ultrasonic rotating 360° can be separated and processed for each rotation.

Conventionally, an encoder, which is a known technique, has been used to determine the rotation angle (position) and angular velocity of the motor 200. However, when the encoder is installed in the capsule endoscope device 10, the capacity of the battery mounted in the oral capsule endoscope device 10, which is bound to have a limited size, is reduced by that amount because it occupies that much space. In addition, since the encoder itself consumes power and a part of the weight of the encoder acts as a load on the motor 200, the encoder acts unfavorably in power management of the capsule endoscope apparatus 10.

As described above, since the utilization of the capsule endoscope device 10 is greatly affected by how long it can be continuously operated inside the human body, the capacity of the battery built in the capsule endoscope device 10 is secured as large as possible. In addition, it is advantageous in many ways to reduce the power consumption of components. In this respect, an object of the present invention is to provide a technique capable of restoring an ultrasound image by processing an echo ultrasound without excluding an encoder provided in the conventional capsule endoscope device 10.

In the present invention, at least one marker 500 is formed on the inner circumferential surface of the capsule body 100 to cover a part of the acoustic window 110, and accordingly, at least a portion of the ultrasonic waves incident on the acoustic window 110 is a marker ( 500). The marker 500 is formed to have a small size, and accordingly, the ultrasonic transducer 300 does not reach the acoustic window 110 only when the ultrasonic wave reflected by the reflector 400 is directed toward the marker 500. ), and when it is out of the area of the marker 500, the ultrasonic wave reaches the acoustic window 110 immediately.

There is no significant limitation on the material of the marker 500, and only the intensity of the ultrasound reflected from the marker 500 is clearly different from the intensity of the ultrasound reflected from the acoustic window 110, for example, reflected from the marker 500. It suffices to function as the marker 500 as the term is, by making the intensity of the ultrasonic wave appear strong.

1 and 2, the marker 500 is a bar shape that crosses a circular trajectory formed with respect to the acoustic window 110 by ultrasonic waves reflected by the reflector 400 rotating by the motor 200 It is formed with. The marker 500 is made of a material whose reflection coefficient is greater than that of the acoustic window 110, for example, a metal material, so that the intensity of ultrasonic waves reflected from the marker 500 is reflected from the acoustic window 110. It is formed stronger than the intensity of ultrasonic waves. Contrary to this, of course, it is also possible to function as the marker 500 by making a material whose reflection coefficient is smaller than that of the acoustic window 110.

In addition, the impedance matching liquid 600 is filled around the path through which the ultrasonic waves emitted from the ultrasonic transducer 300 and reflected from the reflector 400 proceed to the acoustic window 110, so that the ultrasonic waves and the echo ultrasonic waves are affected by the impedance difference. Accordingly, it is possible to prevent a phenomenon in which the acoustic window 110 is no longer progressed to the boundary. In the illustrated embodiment, the impedance matching liquid 600 is filled in the entire inner space of the capsule body 100.

3 is a diagram explaining the principle of generating a reference signal by the marker 500 provided in the acoustic window 110, and how to form the marker 500 on the inner circumferential surface of the acoustic window 110 replaces the encoder You will be able to understand what you can do. It can be summarized that the difference between the reflection coefficients of the marker 500 and the acoustic window 110, the echo characteristics of ultrasonic waves, and the like can be combined to replace the encoder.

3 schematically shows a state in which ultrasonic waves generated by the ultrasonic transducer 300 located at the center of the cylindrical acoustic window 110 emits an ultrasonic beam having a 360° circular trajectory. The capsule endoscope device 10 is surrounded by an ultrasonic medium, and the ultrasonic medium is surrounded by an object that reflects ultrasonic waves (here, quartz). The echo ultrasound reflected from the quartz is returned to the ultrasound transducer 300 and is received, and the echo ultrasound is processed to restore an ultrasound image.

As described above, in order to restore an ultrasonic image from echo ultrasonic waves, a reference point (reference signal) that allows a number of echo ultrasonic waves continuously received by 360° rotating ultrasonic waves to be separated and processed for each rotation must be created.

The ultrasonic beam projected onto the acoustic window 110 without the marker 500 is partially reflected from the surface of the acoustic window 110 to receive the first echo ultrasound (signal "b" in FIG. 3), and then the ultrasonic wave is quartz Second-order echo ultrasound (signal “c” in FIG. 3) with a stronger intensity reflected from is received. When the echo ultrasound is processed, the second echo ultrasound is signal-processed to restore an ultrasound image.

In contrast, when an ultrasonic beam is projected onto the acoustic window 110 on which the marker 500 is formed, the echoed ultrasonic waves first reflected from the marker 500 before being reflected from the acoustic window 110 (“a” signal in FIG. 3) Is returned, and the reverberation ultrasound reflected by the marker 500 has a stronger intensity than the primary reverberation ultrasound, so it is possible to distinguish them (conversely, depending on the material of the marker, the reverberation ultrasound reflected from the marker makes the smallest intensity. It may be as described above). In addition, since the secondary echo ultrasound takes a much longer time to reach the target object and return again, the echo ultrasound reflected by the marker 500 and the secondary echo ultrasound can also be distinguished.

Therefore, since the echo ultrasound reflected from the marker 500 is a unique signal generated only in a narrow area where the marker 500 is formed, it can be used as a starting point of 360° rotation, which can be used as a reference point for ultrasound image restoration. In this respect, the echo ultrasound reflected by the marker 500 may be referred to as a reference echo ultrasound.

Further, since the ultrasound beam continues to rotate 360°, when the reference echo ultrasound reflected from the marker 500 is detected again, the end point of the 360° rotation may be used. In this way, since the start point and the end point at which the ultrasonic beam rotates 360° can be determined, the angular velocity of the motor 200 can be determined based on the time elapsed while the reference echo ultrasonic waves are sensed twice.

When one marker 500 is provided, the angular velocity of the motor 200 is the average angular velocity at one rotation of 360°, and by knowing the average angular velocity of the motor 200, the average time between ultrasonic beams generated at a predetermined frequency is It can be determined, and eventually, this information is confirmed, so that the ultrasound image can be reconstructed.

Here, it is preferable that the number of markers 500 is appropriately determined by the constant speed rotation performance of the motor 200. The deterioration of the constant speed rotation performance of the motor 200 means that the deviation of the angular speed is large during one rotation of 360°. The quality of the ultrasound image is degraded.

4 shows an example including three markers 500. The plurality of markers 500 can be arranged in any manner, either isometric or inconsistent, but evenly arranged to some extent can obtain an average angular velocity for each section that is closer to the instantaneous angular velocity of the motor 200 over the entire 360° section. It is more appropriate in that there is.

When a plurality of markers 500 (N is a natural number of 2 or more) are provided, an arbitrary reference echo ultrasound is used as a starting point, and the end point of 360° rotation when the reference echo ultrasound is detected N+1 times. You can use it as.

In addition, when the N markers 500 are provided, the average angular velocity of the motor 200 may be obtained for each of the N sections. That is, the average angular velocity for each section of the motor 200 can be determined based on the time elapsed while the reference echo ultrasound reflected by the marker 500 is detected twice, and for the ultrasonic beam emitted in each section, the corresponding section Since the average time between ultrasound beams is determined by subdividing based on the average angular velocity of, better ultrasound image restoration is possible.

On the other hand, when a plurality of markers 500 are provided, in particular, when a plurality of bar-shaped markers 500 are provided, at least one of the plurality of markers 500 is attached to the other marker 500. In comparison, the width across the circular trajectory of ultrasonic waves on the acoustic window 110 may be different. When a difference is made in the width of the marker 500 as described above, the number of ultrasonic waves reflected from the marker 500 varies due to the difference in the width of the marker 500. In other words, the number of ultrasound waves reflected from the marker 500 is in proportion to the width of the marker 500 to some extent, and by determining the number of echo ultrasound waves reflected from the marker 500, the corresponding marker 500 Can be distinguished. When the marker 500 can be distinguished, it is possible to further determine the circumferential order of the marker 500, thereby determining the rotation direction of the ultrasonic transducer 300.

In addition, an angle formed by at least one pair of adjacent markers 500 among the plurality of markers 500 may be configured to be different from an angle formed by another pair. Even if the angles between the markers 500 are formed with different unequal intervals, the circumferential order of the markers 500 can be determined (at least the intervals between the three markers need to be unequal intervals). In addition, if the angle between the markers 500 is different so that the order of the markers 500 can be determined, the reverberation within the angle between the two specific markers 500 (consecutive markers as well as separate markers can be selected) It is also possible to create an ultrasound image by processing only ultrasound signals. That is, it is possible to improve the processing speed, reduce the computational load, and reduce the influence of the noise signal by restricting signal processing only for the echo ultrasound in the region of interest, thereby contributing to the improvement of the overall efficiency of the ultrasound imaging apparatus.

The above description is merely illustrative of the technical idea of the present invention, and those of ordinary skill in the art to which the present invention pertains will be able to make various modifications and variations without departing from the essential characteristics of the present invention. Accordingly, the embodiments disclosed in the present invention are not intended to limit the technical idea of the present invention, but to explain the technical idea, and the scope of the technical idea of the present invention is not limited by these embodiments.

10: capsule endoscope device 100: capsule body
110: acoustic window 200: motor
210: rotation shaft 300: ultrasonic transducer
400: reflector 500: marker
600: liquid for impedance matching

Claims (12)

A capsule body in which the circumferential surface of the cylindrical case forms an acoustic window;
An ultrasonic transducer embedded in the capsule body and emitting ultrasonic waves rotating 360° toward the acoustic window; And
At least one marker formed in a direction crossing the circumferential surface to cover a portion of the acoustic window and reflecting at least a portion of the ultrasonic waves incident on the acoustic window;
Including, the intensity of the ultrasonic wave reflected from the marker is different from the intensity of the ultrasonic wave reflected from the acoustic window, capsule endoscope apparatus. The method of claim 1,
A motor disposed on the underside of any one of the capsule body; And
A reflector mounted on the rotating shaft of the motor;
Including, wherein the ultrasonic transducer is disposed on the other bottom of the capsule body so as to face the motor, and the reflector reflects the ultrasonic wave emitted from the ultrasonic transducer to the acoustic window while rotating 360°. Capsule endoscopy device made by. The method of claim 1,
The marker, characterized in that the ultrasonic wave emitted by the ultrasonic transducer is formed in a bar shape that crosses a circular trajectory formed with respect to the acoustic window, and a reflection coefficient of the marker and a reflection coefficient of the acoustic window are different from each other. Capsule endoscopy device. The method of claim 1,
A capsule endoscope apparatus, characterized in that an impedance matching liquid is filled around a path through which the ultrasonic waves emitted from the ultrasonic transducer proceed to the acoustic window. The method of claim 1,
The capsule endoscope apparatus, characterized in that the ultrasonic wave reflected from the marker is used as a starting point of the 360° rotation. The method of claim 5,
A capsule endoscope apparatus, characterized in that when the ultrasonic wave reflected from the marker is detected again as an end point of the 360° rotation. The method of claim 6,
The capsule endoscope apparatus, characterized in that the angular speed of the motor is determined based on a time elapsed while the ultrasonic waves reflected from the marker are detected twice. The method of claim 5,
A capsule endoscope apparatus, characterized in that a plurality of N markers (N is a natural number greater than or equal to 2) are provided, and an end point of the 360° rotation when the ultrasonic wave reflected from the marker is detected N+1 times. The method of claim 8,
The capsule endoscope apparatus, characterized in that to determine the angular velocity of the motor for each section based on the time elapsed while the ultrasonic waves reflected from the marker are detected twice. The method of claim 1,
The ultrasonic transducer comprises a single ultrasonic element, and the ultrasonic image restored from the echo ultrasonic wave received by the ultrasonic transducer is a 2D image. The method of claim 3,
The marker is provided with a plurality of N (N is a natural number of 2 or more), at least one of the markers has a different width across the circular trajectory compared to other markers, and is reflected by the marker due to the difference in width of the markers. Capsule endoscopy device, characterized in that the number of ultrasonic waves to be changed. The method of claim 3,
The plurality of markers (N is a natural number of 2 or more) are provided, and an angle formed by at least one pair of adjacent markers among the plurality of markers is different from an angle formed by another pair.

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