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Medical Device Product Development Testing with LabVIEW

Test Medical Device with LabVIEW
Posted in Embedded Development & Programming, Medical and Pharmaceutical, Product Development, Test & Measurement Automation

Summary

A product development company came to DMC while working on a new medical device. The product was in an early stage, with a need for an integrated test fixture to identify and optimize critical functional parameters.

DMC advised on control strategies and hardware selection, as well as LabVIEW software development to control and collect data from the integrated test fixture.

In the end, the client was able to deliver a robust and extremely capable product to their end customer.

Solution

DMC implemented a LabVIEW-based PC solution with flexible control options for motors, pumps, and other potential control devices as well as flexible options for data acquistion, including DAQmx, RS-232, and Ethernet.

The client started with a loose set of requirements for their hand-held medical device. The end result is an integrated test system that was modular, configurable, and flexible enough to handle testing of potential hardware components and evaluation of critical functional parameters.

The following is a summary of the solution's architecture and features:

  • LabVIEW-based control and data acquisition software application
    • Modular structure; Engineers and Technicians can replace physical components without code changes
    • Low level control of actuators and controls
  • Custom LabVIEW and TDMS system developed to collect and tag large amounts of data.
  • Using DIAdem and National Instrument Datafinder to intelligently sort and analyze test data, allowing effective development team response and decision-making.

Customer Benefits

  • Robust and reliable test
  • High speed, high accuracy data collection
  • Flexible control structure for testing of experimental components
  • Fast testing and verification of new features
  • Capability to rapidly create meaningful data, and have that data immediately accessible and appropriately tagged for validation.
  • Automated testing for optimization of product performance, ultimately enabling the product development team to make effective design decisions.
  • Faster time to market
  • More reliable test data with precisely timed synchronous control and data acquisition
  • Flexible test platform and data mining tools for future qualification and design iteration

Technologies

  • National Instruments LabVIEW for Windows
  • National Instruments DAQmx and Measurement and Automation Explorer
  • TDMS data collection, storage, and mining with National Instruments DIAdem software