Grooming systems, devices, and methods including detection of hair-covered skin lesions during grooming and including topographical analysis

Abstract

Systems, devices, and methods are described for acquiring, among other things, lesion information from a hair or fur-covered region of a biological subject.

1 .- 293 . (canceled) 
     
     
         294 . A grooming system, comprising:
 a body structure including a plurality of spaced-apart projections configured to engage hair;   one or more inertial sensors forming part of the body structure;   an image sensor component forming part of the body structure, the image sensor component including one or more image sensors operable to detect at least one of an emitted energy or a remitted energy associated with a portion of a scalp during grooming with the grooming system, wherein at least a portion of the image sensor component is located proximate a distal end of one or more of the plurality of spaced-apart projections;   a scalp-imaging module operably coupled to the image sensor component to receive one or more inputs from the image sensor component;   an inertial navigation module operably coupled to the body structure and to one or more of the one or more inertial sensors and configured to use the one or more inertial sensors to generate information indicative of at least one of a location or orientation of at least a portion of the grooming system; and   a scalp lesion morphology module that stores grooming device inertial information;   wherein the scalp-imaging module, inertial navigation module, and scalp lesion morphology module include computing device circuitry and memory circuitry.   
     
     
         295 . (canceled) 
     
     
         296 . The grooming system of  claim 294 , wherein the plurality of spaced-apart projections include a plurality of optical fibers, one or more of the optical fibers configured to transmit light from a scalp region to an optical sensor coupled to the brush structure. 
     
     
         297 . The grooming system of  claim 294 , wherein the plurality of spaced-apart projections include a plurality of optical fibers, one or more of the optical fibers configured to transmit light from an illumination source coupled to the brush structure to a distal end of the one or more optical fibers. 
     
     
         298 . The grooming system of  claim 294 , wherein the plurality of spaced-apart projections include a plurality of optical fibers, the plurality of optical fibers having a distribution of lengths. 
     
     
         299 . The grooming system of  claim 294 , wherein at least a portion of the image sensor component is located proximate a scalp contact region of one or more of the plurality of spaced-apart projections. 
     
     
         300 .- 303 . (canceled) 
     
     
         304 . The grooming system of  claim 294 , wherein the one or more inertial sensors include two or more inertial sensors oriented along two or more axes in order to determine multi-axis location and orientation information for the at least a portion of the grooming system. 
     
     
         305 .- 307 . (canceled) 
     
     
         308 . The grooming system of  claim 294 , wherein the inertial navigation module includes circuitry configured to combine information regarding at least one of a location or orientation of the portion of the grooming system with information on the location, length, and orientation of at least one of the plurality of spaced-apart projections relative to the at least a portion of grooming system to determine a position of a tip of the at least one of the plurality of spaced-apart projections. 
     
     
         309 . (canceled) 
     
     
         310 . The grooming system of  claim 294 , wherein the inertial navigation module includes circuitry configured to combine information regarding at least one of a location or orientation of the at least a portion of the grooming system with information on a location and orientation of a skin lesion relative to the grooming system to determine a position of a skin lesion on the scalp. 
     
     
         311 . (canceled) 
     
     
         312 . The grooming system of  claim 294 , including a scalp examination module operably coupled to at least one of the one or more inertial sensors and configured to track the location of examined regions based on one or more measurands output from the at least one of the one or more inertial sensors. 
     
     
         313 .- 314 . (canceled) 
     
     
         315 . The grooming system of  claim 294 , wherein the scalp lesion morphology module is configured to combine measurements from the image sensor component obtained at different spatial locations. 
     
     
         316 . The grooming system of  claim 294 , wherein the scalp lesion morphology module is configured to generate combined measurements from the image sensor component obtained at different spatial locations. 
     
     
         317 . The grooming system of  claim 294 , wherein the scalp lesion morphology module includes at least one of a receiver component, a transceiver component, and a transmitter component operable to communicate lesion information to a remote enterprise. 
     
     
         318 . The grooming system of  claim 294 , wherein the image sensor component includes at least one of a time-integrating optical component, a linear time-integrating component, a nonlinear optical component, a temporal autocorrelating component, or a variable-integration-time image sensor component. 
     
     
         319 . (canceled) 
     
     
         320 . The grooming system of  claim 294 , wherein the scalp-imaging module is operable to store multi-pass information associated with two or more scalp images obtained at different times during grooming. 
     
     
         321 . A method, comprising:
 acquiring one or more images of a hair-covered scalp region with one or more image sensors forming part of a grooming device during grooming with the grooming device, the grooming device including a body structure including a plurality of spaced-apart projections configured to engage hair, an image sensor component including the one or more image sensors, wherein at least a portion of the image sensor component is located proximate a distal end of one or more of the plurality of spaced-apart projections, one or more inertial sensors forming part of the body structure, a scalp-imaging module, an inertial navigation module operably coupled to the one or more inertial sensors, and a scalp lesion morphology module operably coupled to the one or more image sensors, wherein the scalp imaging module, inertial navigation module, and scalp lesion morphology module include computing device circuitry and memory circuitry;   obtaining, with at least one of the one or more inertial sensors, information relating to one or more changes in a location or orientation of at least a portion the grooming device;   retrieving, from memory circuitry of the inertial navigation module, information relating to a reference location or orientation of the at least a portion of the grooming device; and   integrating, using the inertial navigation module, the information relating to the one or more changes in location or orientation of the at least a portion of the grooming device to determine the location or orientation of the at least a portion of the grooming device relative to the reference location or orientation.   
     
     
         322 . The method of  claim 321 , including storing in memory circuitry of the scalp lesion morphology module grooming device inertial information. 
     
     
         323 . The method of  claim 321 , including determining with the inertial navigation module a location of one or more of the plurality of spaced-apart projections with respect to a scalp region location. 
     
     
         324 . The method of  claim 321 , including determining with the inertial navigation module multi-axis location and orientation information for the grooming device, wherein the one or more inertial sensors include inertial sensors oriented along multiple axes. 
     
     
         325 . (canceled) 
     
     
         326 . The method of  claim 321 , including combining, with the inertial navigation module, information regarding the location or orientation of the at least a portion of the grooming device with information regarding the location, length, and orientation of at least one of the plurality of spaced-apart projections to determine a position of a tip of the at least one of the plurality of spaced-apart projections. 
     
     
         327 .- 328 . (canceled) 
     
     
         329 . A grooming method, comprising:
 acquiring a plurality of images of a hair-covered scalp region at a plurality of spatial locations from a plurality of image sensors using a scalp-imaging module during grooming with a hairbrush device, the hairbrush device including a brush structure having a bristle face and a plurality of bristles extending outward from the bristle face, an image sensor component forming part of the brush structure and including the plurality of image sensors, the scalp-imaging module operably coupled to the image sensor component, and a scalp lesion morphology module operably connected to the image sensor component, the scalp-imaging module and the scalp lesion morphology module including computing device circuitry and memory circuitry;   determining, with the scalp-imaging module, at least one of the location, scaling and orientation of each of the plurality of images of the hair-covered scalp region at the plurality of spatial locations; and   combining, with the scalp-imaging module, the plurality of images of the hair-covered scalp region at the plurality of spatial locations.   
     
     
         330 . The method of  claim 329 , including
 generating, with the scalp-imaging module, a spatial map of a scalp region by the combining the plurality of images of the hair-covered scalp region at the plurality of spatial locations;   identifying, with the scalp-imaging module, at least one object in the spatial map of the scalp region; and   generating, with the scalp-imaging module, scalp lesion information with the circuitry for acquiring images responsive to identifying the at least one object in the one or more images.   
     
     
         331 .- 332 . (canceled) 
     
     
         333 . The method of  claim 329 , including
 storing, with the scalp-imaging module, multi-pass information associated with two or more scalp images obtained with the image sensor component at two or more different times during grooming; and   generating, with the scalp-imaging module, scalp lesion registration information responsive to one or more inputs from the image sensor component.   
     
     
         334 . The method of  claim 329 , including generating, with the scalp lesion morphology module, a tactile, audible, or visual response indicative of at least one of scalp lesion morphology information or a user instruction. 
     
     
         335 . The method of  claim 329 , including generating, with an inertial navigation module operably coupled to the hairbrush device and to one or more inertial sensors forming part of hairbrush device, information indicative of at least one of a location or orientation of at least a portion of the hairbrush device. 
     
     
         336 . (canceled) 
     
     
         337 . The method of  claim 335 , including determining, with the inertial navigation module, changes in orientation of the hairbrush device using differential acceleration data from two or more inertial sensors, wherein the one or more inertial sensor include the two or more inertial sensors. 
     
     
         338 . (canceled) 
     
     
         339 . The method of  claim 335 , including determining, with the inertial navigation module, a location or orientation of the at least a portion of the hairbrush device relative to a reference location or orientation by integrating information relating to the one or more changes in location or orientation of the at least a portion of the hairbrush device. 
     
     
         340 . The method of  claim 339 , wherein determining the location or orientation of the at least a portion of the hairbrush device relative to the reference location or orientation includes determining the location or orientation of the at least a portion of the hairbrush device relative to a previous location and orientation of the at least a portion of the hairbrush device. 
     
     
         341 . The method of  claim 340 , including combining, with the inertial navigation module, information regarding the location and orientation of a portion of hairbrush device with information on the location, length, and orientation of at least one of the plurality of bristles to determine a position of the tip of at least one of the plurality of bristles. 
     
     
         342 . The method of  claim 341 , including detecting deflection of the at least one of the plurality of bristles, wherein the at least one of the plurality of bristles includes an optical fiber configured as a fiber-optic strain sensor. 
     
     
         343 . (canceled) 
     
     
         344 . The method of  claim 329 , including combining, with the inertial navigation module, information regarding the location and orientation of a portion of hairbrush device with information on the location, length, and orientation of at least one of the plurality of bristles to determine a position of the tip of at least one of the plurality of bristles. 
     
     
         345 . The method of  claim 344 , including determining, with the inertial navigation module, the location and the orientation of the at least a portion of the hairbrush device relative to a reference location or orientation by integrating information relating to the one or more changes in location or orientation of the at least a portion of the hairbrush device. 
     
     
         346 . (canceled) 
     
     
         347 . The method of  claim 329 , including combining, with the inertial navigation module, information regarding a location and orientation of the at least a portion of the hairbrush device with information regarding a location and orientation of a skin lesion relative to the at least a portion of the hairbrush device to determine a position of the skin lesion on the scalp. 
     
     
         348 .- 349 . (canceled) 
     
     
         350 . The method of  claim 329 , including tracking, with a scalp examination module operably coupled to one or more of the one or more inertial sensors, a location of at least one examined region based on one or more measurands output from at least one of the one or more inertial sensors. 
     
     
         351 . The method of  claim 350 , including determining, with the scalp examination module, cumulative lesion examination information based on at least one measurand output from the image sensor component, wherein the scalp examination module is operably coupled to the image sensor component. 
     
     
         352 . The method of  claim 351 , including determining, with the scalp examination module, which locations have not been examined. 
     
     
         353 . A grooming system, comprising:
 a brush structure having a bristle face and a plurality of bristles extending outward from the bristle face;   an image sensor component forming part of the brush structure, the image sensor component including one or more image sensors operable to detect at least one of an emitted energy or a remitted energy associated with a portion of a scalp during grooming with the grooming system, wherein at least a portion of the image sensor component is located proximate a distal end of one or more of the plurality of bristles;   a scalp-imaging module including computing device circuitry and memory circuitry, the scalp-imaging module operably coupled to the image sensor component to receive one or more inputs from the image sensor component;   a scalp lesion morphology module including computing device circuitry and memory circuitry, the scalp lesion morphology module operably coupled to the image sensor component and configured to generate, responsive to the one or more inputs from the image sensor component, one or more of a tactile, an audible, or a visual response for delivery to a user; and   an output component operably coupled to the scalp lesion morphology module and configured to deliver the one or more of the tactile, the audible, or the visual response to the user;   wherein the one or more of the tactile, the audible, or the visual response is indicative of a user instruction asking for a second pass, a slower pass, a static inspection, a re-inspection with different imaging modality, or a re-grooming of the one or more scalp regions.   
     
     
         354 . The method of  claim 321 , including
 generating, with the inertial navigation module, lesion information representative of a parameter associated with a location and a dimension of at least one scalp lesion responsive to one or more inputs from the image sensor component; and   communicating, with the scalp lesion morphology module, the lesion information to a remote enterprise via a wireless link.   
     
     
         355 . The method of  claim 329 , wherein combining the plurality of images of the hair-covered scalp region at the plurality of spatial locations includes generating combined measurements from a sensor array obtained at different spatial locations or combining measurements from a sensor array obtained at different spatial locations.