Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Engineering - Department of Systems and Biomedical Engineering

Quantitative measurement of the effective usability of the medical equipment is an important parameter in the quality and performance assessment. This work introduces a simple non-invasive technique for real time monitoring of medical equipment modes of operation based on its power consumption pattern. Mode of operation detection is a needed to specify the medical equipment reliability, availability, maintainability and usability. The Electrical Signature Analysis technique (ESA), is applied to monitor the overall electric current consumption of the electromechanical and power components inside the medical equipment. ESA is an extracted using the Root Mean Square (RMS) of the electric current measured by a meter interfaced to a PC via its USB port. The ESA of the medial equipment is a recorded, analyzed and correlated with the stored electric current consumption patterns of each specific mode of operation. The results were promising to accomplish the medical equipment monitoring application. This thesis presents an automatic fault detection system to increase reliability and efficient use of medical equipment. The system is an implemented based on an embedded circuit that uses real-time, external and non-invasive electric current sensor to apply Electrical Current Signature Analysis (ECSA). The Root Mean Square (RMS) of the collected data were calculated, saved and analyzed. The system has been a tested for two different models of medical equipment. Promising results were an obtained from testing two types of laboratory equipment. The system was able to detect the occurrence of different faults during equipment use in several modes of operation

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