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Method and apparatus for monitoring the personal exposure to static or quasi static magnetic fields offered for license agreement

Country of Origin: Italy
Reference Number: TOIT20170414001
Publication Date: 14 April 2017

Summary

An Italian university team of researchers active in the field of physics applied to medicine has developed a system for monitoring the exposure of one or more subjects to a magnetic field in an environment, where surveillance is necessary for human protection.
The team is looking for an industrial partner for license agreement and for further technical cooperation in developing/adapting the technology also through co-financed research.

Description

The inventors of this innovative technology are a research group who focused their activity research in physics applied in the field of medical imaging and tomography. Nowadays, personal magnetic field dosimetry is considered necessary in many national legislations in case of workers exposition to high static magnetic fields (i.e. EU directive 2013/35).

In advanced countries the law puts limits on one or more of the following parameters: (i) the maximum magnetic field exposition of different body parts, (ii) the duration of the exposition, (iii) the induced body currents related to magnetic flux time variations (due to magnetic field variations in time and/or body movements in a static but non-uniform magnetic field).

The present invention refers to an apparatus and a method for making an automatic "environmental" dosimeter, for environments characterized by the need for surveillance for purposes of protection of staff or visitors being admitted thereto, due to the presence of static or quasi-static magnetic fields. In case of static magnetic fields, of greater interest for the present invention, laws generally require staff personnel having access to controlled areas to comply with preset magnetic field exposure limits above described.

Remarkably, regulations generally provide distinct limits for the various anatomical districts, specifying distinct threshold values at least in the case of head, torso and limbs. The innovative step proposed by the present invention is given by the feature of ‘extracting’ the magnetic field exposure from the position measurement, therefore by realizing a magnetic field exposure control with improved performances for all surveilled body districts.

The applications of this invention are:

1. Hospitals and diagnostic centres with high field MRI scanners.

2. Research facilities with magnets that generate high magnetic fields.

3.Industrial activities that involve high magnetic fields and/or high DC currents that generate high magnetic fields

The university is looking for industrial partners for the license agreement. At the present, the stage of development of the invention is a working prototype.

Technical partnership for co-financed research and common further development/adaptation of technology is also possible.

Advantages and Innovations

Environmental surveillance that prevents the possibility to avoid surveillance because the wearable personal dosimeter has been forgotten. Active even during a MRI scan since it is not based on portable electronic devices but only on video cameras located along the perimeter of the controlled area. This allows to monitor personnel that remains in the scanner room to assist special patients (elder people, infants). Allows the determination of the magnetic field for each body district and not only for the location of the wearable personal dosimeter. No limitations about sensitivity, measurement rate and dynamic range as it is for any ordinary gauss meter. Real-time evaluation of induced currents in the body for each body district. The real-time surveillance can provide warnings as soon as any of the controlled parameters exceeds a threshold value. Readily extendable to all cases where changes in the main current of the electromagnet generates temporal variations of the magnetic field strength with a fixed spatial pattern. The system can be used outside the controlled area to reconstruct a “virtual controlled area” and safely train the staff to avoid movements that, in the real working environment, could exceed the threshold values.

Expertise sought

The magnetic field dosimetry is performed using modern 3D image analysis techniques. The invention is based on the possibility to combine the information provided by a set of video cameras to detect several humans inside a controlled area and spatially localize them by means of a simplified human body model (the “stick model”).

The innovative step is to combine the above technology, already developed for different purposes, with a spatial map of the magnetic field in the controlled area (to be acquired once during the system installation procedure) so to extract the magnetic field exposure from the position measurement. It can be done for each body district relevant for monitoring the exposition to intense magnetic fields: head, trunk, limbs.

With the knowledge of the magnetic field pattern and the body position it is possible to realize a magnetic field exposure control with improved performances if compared to commercially existing devices based on wearable gauss meters.

Stage Of Development

Prototype available for demonstration

Requested partner

Type of partner sought: SME, MNE



Specific area of activity of the partner:

Producers of magnetic field monitoring devices (e.g. gaussmeters) and/or of monitoring devices (e.g. radiations. etc.) willing to enter into a new market segment.



Task to be performed by the partner sought:

- In the case of licensing agreement: acquiring a license.



- In the case of technical cooperation agreement: joint further development and adaptation of the offered technology for acquiring a patent license.