US-12622508-B2 - Oral care system and method for promoting oral hygiene

US12622508B2US 12622508 B2US12622508 B2US 12622508B2US-12622508-B2

Abstract

In one embodiment, an oral care system is disclosed that includes an oral care device and at least one programmable processor. The oral care device includes a head having a reference face, a light source, at least one orientation sensor generating orientation data corresponding to orientation measurements of the reference face during a freeform oral care routine, and at least one optical sensor generating optical sensor data representing optical feedback resulting from the light from the light source being incident upon sections of the oral cavity. The processor, based on the orientation data, determines which optical sensor data corresponds with which of the sections of the oral cavity. For each section of the oral cavity, based on the corresponding optical sensor data, the processor determines an oral care characteristic.

Inventors

Hrebesh Molly SUBHASH
Benny E. URBAN, JR.

Assignees

COLGATE-PALMOLIVE COMPANY

Dates

Publication Date: 20260512
Application Date: 20230719

Claims (20)

1 . An oral care system comprising: an oral care device comprising: a head having a reference face; a light source configured to cause light to be incident upon sections of an oral cavity during a freeform oral care routine; and a plurality of sensors comprising: at least one orientation sensor configured to generate orientation data corresponding to orientation measurements of the reference face during the oral care routine; and at least one optical sensor configured to generate optical sensor data representing optical feedback resulting from the light from the light source being incident upon the sections of the oral cavity, the optical feedback being reflected light or fluoresced light; at least one programmable processor communicably coupled to the plurality of sensors, the at least one programmable processor configured to: based on the orientation data, determine which optical sensor data corresponds with which of the sections of the oral cavity; and for each section of the oral cavity, based on the corresponding optical sensor data, determine an oral care characteristic.
2 . The oral care system of claim 1 wherein the oral care characteristic is an oral health characteristic, a brushing effectiveness characteristic, or a teeth whiteness characteristic.
3 . The oral care system of claim 1 wherein the orientation data is expressed in terms of an angular orientation system.
4 . The oral care system of claim 1 wherein the plurality of sensors further comprises at least one motion sensor configured to generate motion data corresponding to motion measurements of the reference face during the oral care routine, and wherein the determination of which optical sensor data corresponds with which of the sections of the oral cavity is further based on motion data.
5 . The oral care system of claim 1 wherein the optical sensor is a spectrometer.
6 . The oral care system of claim 5 wherein the spectrometer is not used for capturing image data.
7 . The oral care system of claim 1 wherein the optical sensor data represents a spectrum of the optical feedback.
8 . The oral care system of claim 1 wherein the optical sensor data comprises at least one of reflected light raw data or fluoresced light raw data.
9 . The oral care system of claim 8 wherein the determination of the oral care characteristic is further based on color-corrected reflected light raw data that is generated using reflected light calibration data.
10 . The oral care system of claim 8 wherein the determination of the oral care characteristic is further based on color-corrected fluoresced light raw data that is generated using fluoresced light calibration data.
11 . The oral care system of claim 8 wherein transformed optical sensor data is generated by transforming the optical sensor data, the transformed optical sensor data representing the oral care characteristic being determined based on: a calculation of reflectance based on the reflected light raw data; a calculation of absorption based on the reflected light raw data; and a fluorescence intensity calculation based on the fluoresced light raw data.
12 . The oral care system of claim 1 wherein the at least one orientation sensor comprises an inertial measurement unit.
13 . The oral care system of claim 1 wherein the at least one programmable processor comprises a first programmable processor and a second programmable processor, the first programmable processor disposed within a body of the oral care device, the second programmable processor wirelessly communicating with the first programmable processor.
14 . A method for promoting oral hygiene, the method comprising: causing light from a light source of an oral care device to be incident upon sections of an oral cavity during a freeform oral care routine, wherein the oral care device comprises a head having a reference face, the light source, at least one orientation sensor, and at least one optical sensor; the at least one orientation sensor generating orientation data corresponding to orientation measurements of the reference face of a head of the oral care device during the oral care routine; the at least one optical sensor generating optical sensor data representing optical feedback resulting from the light from the light source being incident upon the sections of the oral cavity, the optical feedback being reflected light or fluoresced light; at least one programmable processor, based on the orientation data, determining which optical sensor data corresponds with which of the sections of the oral cavity; and the at least one programmable processor, for each section of the oral cavity, based on the corresponding optical sensor data, determining an oral care characteristic.
15 . The method of claim 14 wherein the oral care characteristic is an oral health characteristic, a brushing effectiveness characteristic, or a teeth whiteness characteristic.
16 . The method of claim 14 wherein the orientation data is expressed in terms of an angular orientation system.
17 . The method of claim 14 wherein the plurality of sensors further comprises at least one motion sensor configured to generate motion data corresponding to motion measurements of the reference face during the oral care routine, and wherein the determination of which optical sensor data corresponds with which of the sections of the oral cavity is further based on motion data.
18 . The method of claim 14 wherein the optical sensor is a spectrometer.
19 . The method of claim 18 wherein the spectrometer is not used for capturing image data.
20 . The method of claim 14 wherein the optical sensor data represents a spectrum of the optical feedback.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS The present application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/350,719, filed Jun. 17, 2021, which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/042,074, filed Jun. 22, 2020, U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/042,083, filed Jun. 22, 2020, U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/042,093, filed Jun. 22, 2020, U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/042,099, filed Jun. 22, 2020, and U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/085,426 filed Sep. 30, 2020, each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. BACKGROUND Toothbrushes have been turned into high tech gear through the incorporation of motion sensors and internal cameras, and through the integration with external cameras, smart phones, and apps, all with the goal of improving the oral care routines of users. The motion sensors can help track the brushing routine, the cameras can acquire images or video of the oral cavity during the routine, and the smart phones can help provide feedback to the user to improve the routine. More recently, technology has been incorporated into toothbrushes in order to identify areas of plaque buildup on the teeth of users and early signs of gum decay, all to either help the user better focus their oral care routine or to enable the user to share the information with their dental professional. While these advances are incredibly useful, they also have been shown to have limitations. One particular limitation is that tracking the location and free movement of a toothbrush within the oral cavity is a very complex problem. The solution often includes guiding the user through a pre-determined routine, thereby reducing the complexity of tracking the location and motion of the toothbrush within the oral cavity. Even though artificial intelligence and deep machine learning have been applied to this complex problem, the location and motion tracking capabilities in existence today still leave plenty of room for improvement. Another limitation is with the image and video capture. For cameras embedded into a toothbrush, the captured images and video is largely hindered by toothpaste foam, saliva, fogging of the aperture, and defocusing of the objective lens. Where the targets of the images and video are the teeth and gums, these hinderances only serve to introduce noise into the collected image and video data. In addition, since the recommended brushing period is two minutes long, the resulting image set or video tends to be a large data set, on the order 5 GB, and the noisy data is unwieldly for an inexperienced user to review on their own, and even more so for the dental professional whose time can be critically valuable. Traditional image or video analysis of noisy image and video data also represents a very complex problem, and as such, new techniques are needed to help simplify this problem. Moreover, a solution to this problem naturally lends itself to other advances in the area of oral care. BRIEF SUMMARY Exemplary embodiments according to the present disclosure are directed to oral care systems and methods for promoting oral hygiene through the use of deep machine learning neural networks. Such machine learning techniques provide the advantage of being able to learn to recognize patterns through the analysis of training data. These machine learning techniques may be advantageously employed by an oral care system and method for promoting oral hygiene through analysis of one or more of the location of the oral care device in the mouth, external images of the user's mouth, and data relating to the oral health and/or brushing effectiveness of the user. Such analysis may be advantageously used to more accurately determine the location and orientation of a reference face of the oral care device within the oral cavity, control a powered oral care device to increase the effectiveness of a brushing routine, provide feedback to the user concerning oral care, and provide feedback to the user concerning the wear state of teeth cleaning elements included as part of the oral care device. In a first aspect, the invention can be an oral care system which includes: a head having a reference face; a plurality of sensors configured to generate sensor data, the sensor data including motion data and orientation data corresponding, respectively, to motion measurements and orientation measurements of the reference face during a freeform oral care routine; and at least one programmable processor communicably coupled to the plurality of sensors, the at least one programmable processor configured to: generate transformed sensor data from the sensor data, the transformed sensor data including the orientation data transformed to be expressed in terms of an angular orientation system and the motion data; and determine, during the freeform oral care routine, a location and an orientation of the reference face with respect to the oral cavity using the