Patent ID: 9615729
Date: 2017-04-11
CPC Classifications: A61B

Claim:
1. An endoscope system comprising: an endoscope having an insertion portion inserted into an insertion opening of an object to observe an inner surface of the object, the insertion portion having a detector arranged at an external surface of the insertion portion; an illumination unit including: a visible light source configured to direct visible light towards the detector; and a modulator configured to control the visible light source so that the visible light from the visible light source has a predetermined intensity modulation pattern, the predetermined intensity modulation pattern having a predetermined intensity pattern that varies with time; wherein the visible light source being configured to at least emit modulated visible light having the predetermined intensity modulation pattern from the visible light source as illumination light and the detector being configured to detect the modulated visible light; and a processor comprising hardware, the processor having a determination section configured to determine whether at least a portion of the insertion portion is present in the object based on a detection criteria, the detection criteria being whether or not the detector detects the predetermined intensity modulation pattern of the visible light; wherein the endoscope has an imaging element configured to acquire an endoscopic image, the detector also functions as the imaging element, and the imaging element has an image acquisition mode in which the endoscopic image is acquired and a detection mode in which the modulated visible light is detected.