Design and Reliability Analysis of a Novel Detector

for Monitoring Spine Disease

Ting Li, Yu Su
State Key Lab of Electronic Thin Films & Integrated Devices & Biomedical Engineering department, University of Electronic
Science & Technology of China
Chengdu, China
liting@uestc.edu.cn

AbstractWe reported the design of spine detector, which were used to process data and display the result of detected
was based on near infrared spectrum technology. Then we signals. Meanwhile, there are eight detectors and the LED is
performed series of experiments to fully test its reliabilities, with 4 wave lengthens. Therefore, 32 channel signals are
including the sensitivity, stability, and etc. The results showed detected in a period with a detector catching a wave lengthen
that this instrument was very reliable, sensitive, and stabile, light at the same time.
which supported the promising clinical use of our novel device
in spine health monitoring and diagnose.
Keywordsnear-infrared spectroscopy; design; reliability
test; medical detector

I. INTRODUCTION
A large number of accidents and incidents happen every
year in hospitals and as a consequence a number of patients
die or are injured [1]. Some of those are caused by
misdiagnosis of medical instruments. Thus reliability is one
of the most important characteristic for medical instrument,
so here we main to design a medical instrument and verify its
reliability in this paper. The spine is one of the tissues
considered important in the assessment of human population
health [2]. Spine disease contain spine infiltration disease
caused by tumor invasion, inflammation, trauma, and etc.
The recent common clinical diagnosis methods of spine
disease are spine biopsy [3] and medical imaging with X, CT
or MRI technologies [4]. While spine biopsy an invasive
diagnostic method is extremely painful for the patient and
cannot diagnosed continuously. Medical imaging is too
expensive.
In this study, we designed an instrument of spine disease
detector which was based on near infrared spectrum (NIRS)
technology [5]. In this design, voltage drive in A/D convertor,
class twisted-pair in multi-channel signals and etc. were used
to minimize noise such as crosstalk etc. Then a series of
experiments were performed to verify its reliability.
According to the result of experiments and data analysis, our
instrument was very reliable, sensitive, and stabile.
II. METHOD
A. Device design
The structure diagram of the instrument was designed
as fig.1. It contains power supply, master control, light
source drive multi-wavelength LED, probe light source,
multi-detector, channel selection, data process, computer. In
detail, power supply provides power for all components with
3.3V and 5v. Data process contains a 16 bit A/D convertor
which changes analog signals into digital signals. Computer
Fig. 1. Structure diagram of instrument
B. Reliability test
To eliminate noise such as crosstalk, some methods
were token in the circuit of the instrument. Two main
methods of them are class twisted-pair in multi-channel
signals and voltage drive in A/D convertor. We performed an
experiment with taking those methods or not to contrast
analyses. In addition, to test reliability and stability of this
instrument, ink experiment was conducted. A polyethylene
container was chosen as the experiment container with a
black elastic bandage tied the probe to the container wall.
500ml water was poured into the container and then 2ml of
ink was injected into it. After uniform mixing, repeated the
above operation once again.
III. RESULTS
In fig. 2 and fig. 3, this instrument was used to detect a
uniform block which was similar to our body tissue. In
theory, the detected value should stay constant for its
uniform character. However, the detected data keep
variational all the time for interference. In Fig. 2, the
instrument was without de-noise process and the detected
value was with large noise. In fig. 3, voltage drive in A/D
convertor circuit, class twisted-pair line in multi-channel
signals were token to reduce noise such as crosstalk. Fig. 3
shows that the detected data curves are much more stable
than those of fig.2.

Fig. 2. Without de-noise
Fig. 3. De-noise
Fig. 4 shows the test data of our instrument in ink
experiment. Each color curve represents a channel data. The
signals had an evident decline trend every time when we
injected ink into the container, and then kept stable. After
many times repeated injection, the value was with small
variation. The result indicates that this instrument is with
satisfactory sensitivity and reliability. Meanwhile, we can
see from the picture, after injecting ink into the container, the
value of the detected signals had a step change. It was
because that the solution was created stochastic wave when
ink injected into the water. In the other side, this step change
further verifies the sensitivity of this instrument.
Fig. 4. Ink Experiment
IV. CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
In this work, we designed an instrument of spine
disease detector and some methods were token in the circuit
of the instrument to improve the reliability and stability by
eliminating noise. According to the result of above
experiments, it is shown that our instrument has excellent
performance. We mainly paid attention to the design of spine
detector, improving the performance of instrument, and
tested its reliability and stability. Now we have built
cooperation with some hospital such as Shanghai Xinhua
Hospital, and next clinical evaluation will be taken.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We thanked all group members who supported this
research and encouraged us to finish this research in the
study.This study was supported by the National Natural Scie
nce Foundation of China (Grant No. 61308114) and the nati
onal natural science fund projects (Grant No. 61675039).
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