요속검사시 배뇨상황에 무관한 신호대잡음비 개선 기법

Abstract

Standard uroflowmetry measures the urine weight using single load cell to evaluate the urinary flow rate. Impact noise should be introduced due to gravity when the urine stream falls down into the container upon the load cell. The present study placed three load cells on the three vertices of a regular triangle and the three signals were ensemble averaged to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio(SNR) regardless of how the urination was made. Simulated urination experiment was performed with three different urine collection methods. In all three methods, SNR of the averaged signal was much higher than each load cell signals. With no urine collection device, the present signal averaging technique resulted in SNR values higher by 10~15 dB than when dual funnels or upper funnel were used to guide the urine stream. Therefore, it was demonstrated that the three point measurement followed by with ensemble averaging could enable accurate uroflowmetric test without any specially made urine collection devices.