A compact, intuitive, high-throughput and accurate SPR-based chemical analyzer for evaluating molecular interactions.

Complete design of the environmental control and analysis module of the Octave System to address the market of widely distributed non-specialized bio-research labs that perform high-throughput testing of small samples to measure molecular interactions.

Stratos designed a device that was much smaller than current instruments, less expensive, intuitive and easy to operate even for the occasional lab user. The instrument performs at the highest levels of accuracy and throughput available in the industry.

Mechanical Engineering

Met the small 7“x7“x7” volume requirement of the instrument without building a physically larger initial proof-of-concept prototype due to tight timelines.

Used Pro/Engineer CAD tools to model all components down to the discrete component level including PCBs. Met all size requirements by judicious selection and manipulation of the mechanical components and by partitioning the circuit boards to optimize use of the limited volume.

Designed an instrument that agitated the liquid sample, provided light and temperature control, ensured fluid containment, and interfaced with an existing laboratory robot. Developed a limited-use cartridge for housing the solid-state surface plasmon resonance (SPR) chips.

Electrical Engineering

Worked with the client and Stratos engineers to establish functional specifications for the product and define the system architecture, balancing performance requirements, mechanical constraints, and software needs during development of the production system.

The foundation of the resulting system was a powerful DSP-based controller for processing voluminous data flowing from the sensors. Feeding the data was a fast and quiet data acquisition subsystem. Very precise temperature control was used to minimize sensor drift, and a brushless DC motor was used for sample agitation. A USB interface was implemented for downloading control and uploading processed data to the host PC.

Industrial Design

Conducted user research in appropriate lab environments to understand the context of the user’s experience and explore device architecture alternatives. Evaluated different architectures for potential ease-of-use and technical feasibility.

Built concept models and coordinated with engineering disciplines to evaluate alternatives’ impact on cost, system complexity and manufacturability. Completed the industrial design effort through product branding, color scheme and graphics.

Software Engineering

Designed firmware to manage the environmental control and analysis modules of the Octave System. Implemented environmental control firmware to manage the unit’s temperature stability to ±0.1° C, agitate the sample-wells and control an optical shutter.

Programmed the processing and analysis of eight data channels involving over 400K analog to digital conversions per second. Resulting spectrum curves were analyzed to determine numerical solutions and communicated over a USB interface.

Selected Texas Instruments’ DSP BIOS operating system for its real-time performance and ability to manage various sub-systems. Defined Octave interface specification and USB device drivers.

Implemented other features including a firmware upgrade over USB, lighted logo/indicator badge as part of the user interface and built-in test equipment (BITE) utilizing a RS232 interface for debugging purposes.

Project Management

Delivered a complete development and execution plan based on concepts and requirements initially presented by the customer.

Resource allocation and communication planning was critical for success, since the project required integration of multiple design disciplines including mechanical, high-speed electronics, software, bioengineering, and industrial design.

Utilized scope management and qualitative risk assessment to ensure that technical issues were anticipated and mitigated. Regular reports and review meetings throughout the process kept the client informed of progress.

Optical Engineering

Modeled and tested the performance of TI Spreeta sensors (surface plasmon resonance sensors) and designed methods to improve their performance by thermal compensation and spatial alignment.