US 2,007,219,059 · Filed 2007-03-19
The Patent That Turns Your Body Sounds Into a Personal Trainer
Imagine a fitness system that listens to your breathing, watches your movements, and reads your heart rate all at once—then tells you exactly how hard to push during a workout. This patent describes technology that uses body sounds and vital signs to coach you in real time, making exercise safer and more personalized for everyone from athletes to people recovering from injury.
The plain-English version
What it protects
The claim covers a system and method that continuously collects data from multiple body sensors—including microphones that pick up breathing and internal sounds, motion trackers, and vital sign monitors—then uses special signal processing to separate real body data from background noise and interference. What's protected is the specific approach to extracting authentic physiological signals even when they overlap with noise, plus the real-time analysis and automated coaching that adjusts exercise intensity based on that data.
Why it matters
This patent bridges wearable health technology and personalized coaching, targeting a market that spans elite athletes, gym-goers, and rehabilitation patients. By automating the role of a trainer through continuous body monitoring, it opens the door to safety and efficiency gains across multiple fitness segments. The signal-processing innovation—pulling clean data out of noisy, overlapping sensor inputs—solves a real engineering challenge that had limited practical solutions at the time of filing.
Real-world use
A runner wearing a chest band and smartwatch gets real-time feedback during a workout: the system hears breathing patterns and detects rising fatigue, then automatically suggests easing off before injury or overtraining sets in.
Original USPTO abstract
A method and system is invented for continuous monitoring, real-time analysis, and automated and personalized training of exercise. The system embodies a multi-sensor data acquisition system to measure body sounds, body signs, vital signs, motions, and machine settings continuously and automatically. The system is able to capture the body sounds and other vital signs, analyze them, and report and display summarized results. The signal processing functions utilize a unique signal separation and noise removal methodology by which authentic signals can be extracted from interfered signals and in noisy environments, even when signals and noises have similar frequency components or are statistically dependent. The method and system will facilitate continuous monitoring, real-time analysis, and computerized evaluation of level of effort, physical stress, and resulting fatigue during physical activity or exercise. In addition, based on body sound data, or in combination with other monitored physiological signals, and knowledge of the individual and exercise being performed, the system will evaluate the person's physical performance and then act as an automated coach to guide exercise intensity and duration thereby optimizing and individualizing the training process. The invention is especially targeted, but not limited to, cardiopulmonary monitoring for athletes for improving the efficiency and safety of exercise, rehabilitation programs for out-of-shape individuals, and routine exercise of the general population.
Patent details
- Publication number
- US 2,007,219,059
- Filing date
- 2007-03-19
- Grant date
- Application — not yet granted
- Assignee
- Schwartz Mark H / Le Yi Wang / Hong Wang
- Inventor(s)
- SCHWARTZ MARK H., WANG LE YI, WANG HONG
- CPC class
- A61B7/003
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