Catheter Profiling
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Catheter Inspection
Small diameter tubing is the main component of a medical catheter devices used in non-invasive surgery. Each part of this critical device must be kept within ridged specifications and each is subject to 100% inspection.

Requirements
A major medical device manufacturer needed a system that could measure catheter tubing on line. Because of the unique method of manufacturing each catheter is formed with an outside diameter that varies with length. Thus the tubing could not be inspected using a common measurement system but needed quality control system that could record and then measure the catheter profile and compare the diameter at each point of length to the specified diameter at each point on the length. The system had to measure on the extrusion line, be able to provide a high measurement resolution and had to be able to measure at high production rates.

Solution
MetriLogic teamed with a manufacturer of high speed Laser measurement system. Using a high speed interface a special program was developed that would capture each diameter reading - at up to 2400 readings per second! At the same time the movement of the extrusion line was measured so that each diameter reading corresponded to a linear position on the tube. With this information the program could assemble the profile of each catheter tube and compare it to a memorized profile with limits - all in real time. If the measured profile deviated of the from the target profile tolerances then an alarm would be tripped.

Specific Features
A graphical display of each measured profile which displays the current and the last 10 profiles to be overlaid on the same graph. This allows the operator to see the trends and variations in the shape allowing a 3 dimensional look.