The Piccolo® Clinical Chemistry Analyzer is a portable blood chemistry analyzer. It performs multiple tests on a single blood sample, features exceptional ease-of-use, and provides fast results.
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 -- no tricky computer connections and downloads.
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.
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 IC and HEDS-5505 rotary optical encoder.
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.
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.
Helped select xenon flashlamp for sample analysis light source. Designed flashlamp interface circuit. Implemented a SCR-based flashlamp drive circuit.
"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.
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Gary Embler (remove the "-nospam-" in the address to email)
October 14, 2002