VetScan® Classic clinical chemistry analyzer
The VetScan Classic clinical chemistry analyzer is a portable clinical blood chemistry analyzer. It performs multiple tests on a single blood sample, features exceptional ease-of-use, and provides fast results.
Company
Design Engineer
Product Design and Development Areas
Embedded control systems
Selected microcontrollers and associated components. Helped select two Intel MCS® 96 16-bit microcontrollers—one for handling user interface and system control, and the other for performing sample manipulation, data acquisition, and data processing. Designed and developed microcontroller-related systems: Memory (RAM and ROM), real-time clock, interrupt control, reset control, watchdog protection, and power management. Selected PC Card firmware storage to facilitate field upgrades by simple card exchanges, avoiding tricky computer connections and downloads.
User interface system
Selected user interface devices: LCD module, keypad, loudspeaker, and thermal printer mechanism. Designed and developed the user interface system including interfaces to the LCD, keypad, loudspeaker, and printer. Designed an RS-232 PC serial interface for computer interfacing capability.
Motor system
Selected sample manipulation brushless-DC motor and motor control-drive components. Designed and developed the motor control and drive system. Designed programmable logic for motor commutation. Designed with Agilent Technologies HCTL-1100#PLC digital motion control chip and HEDS-5505 rotary optical encoder.
Bar code reader interface
Designed bar code reader interface for sample container bar code reading. Implemented an adaptive analog front-end circuit for processing the raw bar code signal and extracting a valid bar code despite process variabilties.
Sample analysis optical sensor interface
Designed interface for multiple-photodiode optical sensor. Implemented a multi-channel, low-noise analog photodiode amplifier and integrator circuit to process the raw photodiode signals for analog-to-digital conversion.
Sample analysis light source
Helped select xenon flashlamp for sample analysis light source. Designed flashlamp interface circuit. Implemented a SCR-based flashlamp drive circuit.
References
- "Portable Simultaneous Multiple Analyte Whole-Blood Analyzer for Point-of-Care Testing," C.T. Schembri et.al., Clinical Chemistry, Vol. 38, No. 9, 1992, pp. 1665 - 1670.