Raman spectroscopy of respiratory gases.

摘要

Method and apparatus for determining the composition and concentration of gases (14) present in a patient's airway by measurement of the spectrum of Raman scattered light (16) from these gases. The gases (14) present are assumed to be drawn from a predetermined set of gases with known Raman scattering spectra, and the concentrations are determined by solution of a matrix equation Ac = b, where the c vector components are the unknown concentrations and the b vector components are determined from measurements of the Raman scattering intensities in a plurality of wavelength or wavenumber intervals. The linear system of equations represented by the matrix equation may be overdetermined and may require solution by non-conventional methods, such as singular value decomposition. <IMAGE>