A Flowmeter With Telemetry for Chronic Animal Studies

描述（由申请人提供）：植入传感器的连续血流量测量减少了研究动物的数量，因为植入传感器降低了测量变异性并提高了准确性。然而，目前的流量计技术需要将动物拴在记录硬件上。这使动物和手术器械投资处于危险之中，而压力大的实验环境可能会改变血流。跨音速系统公司将通过开发一种小型化的；电池供电的无线流量计兼容现有的，长期植入式流量探头。它足够小，可以植入较大的动物体内，或者作为“背包”附在老鼠身上，它将实时传输自由漫游动物的流动。其精度将匹配目前的台式流量计；它的低功耗将使长期研究成为可能。在第一阶段，实验/动物试验证明了新的流量计电路的可行性和性能，可以转换成定制的低功耗流量计芯片组。第二阶段的研究将实现/验证一种流量计LSI芯片组，该芯片组可以与现成的遥测芯片集成，并且可以在硬币电池上运行100小时。在第二期商业化期间，我们将向研究仪器制造商销售该芯片组，以便与现有遥测系统集成，同时也向越来越多的医疗设备制造商销售，这些制造商需要用于植入LVAD/机械心脏设备的低功率流量测量。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant):Continuous blood flow measurement with implanted sensors reduces the number of animals studied because implanted sensors lower measurement variability and improve accuracy. However, current flowmeter technology requires that animals be tethered to recording hardware. This puts the animal and the surgical instrumentation investment at risk, while the stressful experimental setting may alter flow. Transonic Systems will resolve this problem by developing a miniaturized; battery powered wireless flowmeter compatible with existing, and chronically implantable flow probes. Small enough to be implanted in larger animals or attached as a "backpack" to the rat, it will transmit real-time flow from free-roaming animals. Its accuracy will match current benchtop flowmeters; its low power consumption will enable chronic studies. During Phase-I bench/animal tests demonstrated the feasibility and performance of new flowmeter circuitry that can be converted into a custom low-power flowmeter chipset. The Phase-II research will implement/validate a flowmeter LSI chipset that can be integrated with off-the-shelf telemetry chips, and can run for 100 hours on a coin-cell battery. During Phase-Ill commercialization we will market the chip-set to research instrumentation manufacturers for integration with existing telemetry systems, and also to the growing number of medical device manufacturers needing low-power flowmetry for implanted LVAD/mechanical heart devices.