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[on:]

Hi, I am new here and I am not sure this is the right place to ask this question.

I need to build a device which is able to detect osteoporosis with arduino, but I have no idea where I should start. I googled a lot today however; I got nothing specific.
Do u have any idea or tips to follow?

I also start this topic in "General Discussion" part

Thank you, Take care.

[Reply #1 on:]

What symptom of osteoporosis are you detecting?

[Reply #2 on:]

which is able to detect osteoporosis with arduino,

No an arduino is a controller it detects nothing. What you need is a sensor. Then you can put the sensor into an arduino to do some display or data processing. Most of the one I have seen involve x-ray density bone measurements, not an amateur field.

[Reply #3 on:]

Why do you want to do this? I can't think of any practical off-the-shelf sensor that could detect it.

[Reply #4 on:]

interesting project!!!

but I have no idea where I should start.

1) start with reading what osteoporosis is and the known ways to detect it.  include the 1st and 2nd order hypothesis error statistics

2) determine what kind of sensors are suitable / could do this kind of detection. range etc

3) determine what is the datastream from those detectors? how to analyse this stream? how much processing power do you need?

4) Can an Arduino do this?

=============

Answer (1) might include: rontgen, blood testing, BMI, specific mass, statistics chance = f(age, sex, length, weight, form of feet, family, ... ) .....

Answer (4): I guess not (as I expect heavy processing), but you can allways add an Arduino to the system with a LCD displaying "YES/NO : uncertainty %"

Q: do you want to determine osteoporosis  in living beings or check old bones for osteoporosis ?

NB dead material can be tested in a sort of break bench and determine at what force it would break - Arduino could control such device. (for living beings this is not ethical)

Q: what is your medical / programming / electro knowledge?

[Reply #5 on:]

Thanks for your answers guys. I am an electronics engineer. This project is one of our Graduation project's topics. The full name of the project is "Design and implementation of an ultrasonic bone characterization device". I thought I can build a device with arduino, which can detect osteoporosis, I googled more, after I wrote my first message, but I got nothing. I am not sure maybe I am in the wrong way.
What do u think about ultrasonic bone characterization device? What can be designed and how?

Thank you very much. Take care...

[Reply #6 on:]

The full name of the project is "Design and implementation of an ultrasonic bone characterization device".

It seems to me that you need to start by understanding what an 'ultrasonic bone characterization device' is intended to be and what requirements your design and implementation has to meet. It should not be up to you to guess what the device is and how it is supposed to work.

[Reply #7 on:]

Is the bone thickness or bone density measured? Have you designed the ultrasonic system?

[Reply #8 on:]

The arduino can measure DC voltages from 0v to +5v, and monitor digital high/low voltages on certain pins. It can also generate pulsed voltage outputs on certain pins. Various librarys take advantage of these propertys to support various popular external gizmos and communication protocols. Your best path probably is to research medical and bio engineering archives, patents, and similar for osteoporosis related info.  

[Reply #9 on:]

The arduino is good for fast prototyping. That's just what you need.
You probably need some extra electronics for the ultrasonic device.
But you need some microcontroller anyway.

That ultrasonic device is the most important part. You could test a few to see what they do.

Thinking about it, you need an ultrasonic pulse, and capture a number of analog samples of the echo of that pulse. Let's  say 1000 samples.
Those 1000 samples could be sampled with a chip, but perhaps the analog sample rate of the Arduino is high enough.
Those 1000 samples contain the information where the bone starts and how the density is.

[Reply #10 on:]

The arduino is good for fast prototyping. That's just what you need.
You probably need some extra electronics for the ultrasonic device.
But you need some microcontroller anyway.

That ultrasonic device is the most important part. You could test a few to see what they do.

Thinking about it, you need an ultrasonic pulse, and capture a number of analog samples of the echo of that pulse. Let's  say 1000 samples.
Those 1000 samples could be sampled with a chip, but perhaps the analog sample rate of the Arduino is high enough.
Those 1000 samples contain the information where the bone starts and how the density is.

Sorry for posting late. Yes Krodal, today I have learned more details about the project. I guess I need an ultrasonic sensor which operates at 1MHz due to some medical restrictions, and I have found this sensor, but I am not sure how it works with arduino.

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/106224/210760142-493050513/1MHZ-Ultrasonic-transducer-ultrasonic-sensor.html

Guys thanks for your replies. Have good day...

[Reply #11 on:]

That's really interesting.
But you need special hardware to send the pulse and to receive the echo.
The arduino can only be used to control that special hardware.