State-of-the art medical device inspection

When Sensofar Medical was designing its new Q vix systems for stent and heart valve inspection, they needed an automated XY stage that would preserve both the aesthetic and functional elements of their established Q six system while meeting enhanced mechanical specifications. Prior Scientific was able to provide the ideal solution in the form of a customized encoded stage.

Sensofar Medical provides state-of-the-art technology for the inspection of implantable medical devices and components as well as leading-edge solutions for research and development worldwide. The Q vix and Q vix Pivot are comprehensive systems designed to simplify inspecting stents and heart valves in production environments. 

The Requirements

Sensofar’s Q vix systems work with a pixel size of approximately 1.7 µm and measure samples that move with the stage. Some analysis features needed to move the stage to specific coordinates based on image data.

The inspection routines also required excellent mechanical straightness, especially on the X-axis, to detect small defects on screen when the axis is in motion.

These requirements meant that high accuracy, linearity, and repeatability were essential to ensure measurement reliability.

The systems are also designed to inspect stents and valves up to 220 mm in length, so a stage with a long travel range was required. Rotary stage modules weighing up to 15 kg would need to be mounted on to the stage itself so load capacity was another key consideration.

Sensofar also needed to mount the stage with two pins to align the camera orientation of the sensor with the stage’s orientation axis. This would make commissioning of each system much simpler than having to align the stage and camera manually. 

Image courtesy of Sensofar Medical.