www.corscience.de: News

Corscience becomes a member in the new EMEA Design House Program from Texas Instruments

Mon, 03 May 2010 08:55:00 +0200

The EMEA Design House network includes independent, established and renowned companies, who provide services encompassing the areas of system integration and product development. The Design House Program offers a platform for TI partners and customers who require support and expertise for developing electronic system solutions based on IC components and hardware/software integration. In addition, a Design House also provides consulting in design and development, research activities and the complete production process, as well as for any service which can contribute toward accelerating system innovation and product development.

"EMEA Design Houses are playing and increasingly decisive role with OEMs when it comes to topics like system architecture, the introduction of new technologies, the time to market, etc. These are exactly the areas we would like to address with the TI EMEA Design House Program. Our EMEA Design Houses offer high quality, efficient system integration, product services and software development for a wide range of applications and end devices, including those for medicine, industry, energy management, transport, security, the consumer area and others,” said Christoph Gromann, Manager of Focus End Equipment EMEA at TI.

As a complete service provider in medical engineering, Corscience provides customized research, development and production services, as well as complete OEM solutions for integration into medical applications. They focus on cardiovascular diagnostics and therapy, whereby here, innovations in vital parameter measurement, wireless transmission, and electric stimulation and signal analysis are in the foreground. The innovative solutions from Corscience are used worldwide by well-known companies, such as Carl Zeiss AG and Fukuda Denshi Co. Ltd.

“We are very happy to have been accepted into the circle of recommended service providers by Texas Instruments. This attests our years of expertise in the medical engineering branch,” says a delighted Uwe Günther, Head of Sales at Corscience. Thanks to the alliance with TI, the company has access to the newest innovations of the American chip manufacturer, some of which are not freely available. As an EMEA Design House, Corscience, with its know-how, can also decisively influence future TI developments in the area of medical engineering.

Texas Instruments intensively supports the members of the Design House program with technical support, as well as with marketing and sales activities, training, evaluation components, reference designs and development tools. “We are open for new Design Houses, whose innovative force and motivation promote the development of new markets and applications. Corscience is known as an innovative company in the medical engineering branch, who provides its customers with high-quality and cost-optimized solutions. Therefore, we are very pleased to welcome Corscience as a new member in the EMEA Design House Program,” Christoph Gromann said.

About Corscience GmbH & Co. KG:
Corscience GmbH & Co. KG stands for innovations in the cardiovascular area. The medical engineering company, based in Erlangen, Germany, has established itself on the market as a complete service provider and, in addition to research jobs and the development of medical products, they also take care of their approval, as well as the complete production and logistics. Furthermore, Corscience offers a wide range of modular OEM solutions (ECG, defibrillation, NiBP, SpO2, O2) for integration in medical devices. Their technological focuses lie in the areas of cardiological therapy and diagnostics, biosignal analysis, instrumentation and wireless telemetry. With regard to research, Corscience believes in close cooperation with renowned universities, clinics and private research institutes, thereby securing its innovative force. Quality, transparency, flexibility and complete documentation are the main components of the extensive quality management system in accordance with DIN EN ISO 9001, DIN EN ISO 13485 and MDD Appendix II. As a subsidiary of the Hamburg medical device manufacturer Weinmann Geräte für Medizin GmbH + Co. KG, Corscience currently employs 50 people and supports well-known national and international customers.

About Texas Instruments:
Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) helps its customers to take on challenges intelligently and to develop new electronic applications, which include the areas of health, security, environment and entertainment. As a globally active semiconductor company with production, development and sales sites in more than 30 countries, TI offers its customers solutions for the future. Additional information can be found under www.ti.com.

Press contact:

Marlies Maier
Public relations
Tel.: 09131 / 977986-389
Fax: 09131 / 977986-59
e-mail: maier@corscience.de
Website: www.corscience.de

New therapeutic approach for cardiac insufficiency: Muscular counterpulsation (MCP)

Thu, 28 May 2009 10:53:00 +0200

Currently, about 1.3 million people suffer from chronic cardiac insufficiency in Germany. This makes cardiac insufficiency one of the most common illnesses ever. Up to now, therapy was only possible with medication or with the highly-invasive implantation of special pacemakers and implantable defibrillators.

Now, with m.pulse, there is a device available for the first time, which makes non-invasive home therapy for chronic cardiac insufficiency possible, either by itself, or in combination with other therapies. The technical implementation is based on the mechanism of muscular counterpulsation (MCP), a new therapeutic approach from Cardiola AG. Here, synchronous with the heart-beat, peripheral muscle groups of the patient’s thighs and lower legs are made to contract by means of light electrical pulses. This mainly reduces the vessel resistance in the body, which relieves the heart, and therefore leads to improved oxygen balance and blood circulation. For the patient, this has an enhancing effect on performance and the quality of life that goes with it.

Components of the overall system include an operating unit, a pulse generator and a charging station. The actual therapeutic unit, the pulse generator, is worn on a soft belt and communicates with the operating unit wirelessly on the 2.4 GHz band.

The stimulation pulses are controlled and configured via the battery-powered operating unit, which comes equipped with a 5.7” TFT touchscreen display. Since the user group mainly consists of older patients and senior citizens, the operating design was optimized with clear color signals, large buttons and a self-explanatory user guidance system, especially designed for this target group. The operating unit also has a memory card reader, which can be used by the doctor to read preset medical parameters into the device.

The main component of the operating unit is an embedded system with a Linux operating system. This was installed directly on the hardware of the operating unit to reduce the manufacturing costs. Necessary adaptations in the Linux kernel and the graphics library were made by Corscience themselves. After successfully putting together the toolchain, a proprietary board support package was created, which is also currently being used in other products and projects.

Therewith, the development of m.pulse represents a combination of Corscience know-how in ECG instrumentation and algorithms, biphasic electrostimulation, wireless data transmission and embedded Linux. Therefore, special technical knowledge is combined to realize innovative and unique sys-tem concepts in products.

About Cardiola AG:
Cardiola AG has its headquarters in Winterthur, Switzerland. Cardiola AG is active in the technical and clinical further development of muscular counterpulsation (MCP). MCP is a new treatment approach for chronic cardiac insufficiency, which is based on the proven effective mechanism of counterpulsation. Up to now, this therapeutic mechanism could only be used in a clinical environment in intensive care units or with complex technical equipment. The patentprotected method from Cardiola now allows this active principle to be used for the first time within the scope of non-invasive therapy, which the patient can carry out himself at home. MCP is medically approved and CE-certified.

About Corscience GmbH & Co. KG:
Corscience is a medium-sized medical engineering company with the business areas R&D services, OEM Solutions, and Products & Systems. From customized development to ready-to-install OEM modules and their own medical engineering devices, Corscience offers everything from one source. The focus here is mainly on the areas of cardiovascular diagnostics and therapy, wireless sensor systems and telemetry, as well as signal analysis and algorithms. Corscience is certified according to DIN EN ISO 9001, DIN EN ISO 13485 and MDD Annex II and can therefore put medical products on the market, also for their customers. The company is located in Erlangen, in the middle of “Medical Valley”. Founded in 2001, Corscience currently employs a team of 42 highly qualified people.

Press contact:

Marlies Maier
Public relations
Tel.: 09131 / 977986-389
Fax: 09131 / 977986-59
e-mail: maier@corscience.de
Website: www.corscience.de

Wireless networking via IEEE 802.15.4 of 16 ergometers

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:48:00 +0200

Ergowatch is designed for up to 16 patients who are exercising at the same time in a rehab facility and can be monitored. The stress profiles are controlled individually for each ergometer. The completely saved ECG data and the entire exercise history can be called up in a network at any time for diagnostic study.

Corscience has equipped this system with wireless data transmission in accordance with IEEE 802.15.4. The bidirectional data transmission of the 16 ergometers is now wireless. This way, there are no bothersome cable connections and the installation cost is considerably reduced. The transmission range is up to 10 meters.

In the area of wireless communication, several different standards exist and compete in the 2.4 GHz band nowadays, some of which cover the same application areas. While WLAN and Bluetooth are excellently suited for transmitting large amounts of data for a few devices, the IEEE 802.15.4/Zigbee standard was specially designed for the transport of small amounts of data with a short time delay. In addition, it is relatively simple to realize a star or even a mesh topology with embedded systems with IEEE 802.15.4/Zigbee.

Since a relatively small amount of data has to be transmitted in ergometer networks (bidirectional control signals and unidirectional ECG data) and, in the case of this project, a complex star topology in an embedded system was required, the IEEE 802.15.4.standard was excellently suited for realizing this task. Therefore, to centrally control the 16 ergometers, a PAN (personal area network) was set up, consisting of four coordinators as receiver units, each with four end devices (ergometers) as transmitters. The mutual interference of the four coordinators was avoided by having each of them transmit on a different physical wireless channel. Therefore, even when the extended star topology with 4 x 4 devices is in operation, there is no interference.

Since 802.15.4 is the basis for a Zigbee application, real Zigbee networks can also be realized with a mesh topology based on this development. The basic principles for this were already defined during the development phase and the hardware was also prepared accordingly. With this, distributed, intelligent medical networks are possible, which consist of many different mobile as well as fixed nodes, and realize a pervasive health care structure.

As a specialist for wireless transmission and cardiovascular applications, Corscience has already realized numerous projects with Bluetooth, WLAN, GSM/GPS, IEEE 802.15.4, as well as Zigbee. Corscience therefore combines special knowledge from medical technology and wireless data transmission to develop innovative projects. For these, requirements from the medical product law and the R&TTE directive are reconciled nationally and internationally (FDA/FCC).

About Zimmer MedizinSysteme GmbH:
With 40 years experience in technical medicine, Zimmer MedizinSysteme has become one of the leading European manufacturers for physiotherapy systems. Innovative cardiologic products, diagnostic products and software also enhance the product lines. Milestones along the road of electro-medicine leading from Zimmer MedizinSysteme are those such as the development of the first fully transistorized device for diathermy, patented inventions as disposable electrodes, variable micro-wave beams, ECG amplifier combined with electrode suction applicator, or the new color touch screen system for physiotherapy systems. The noteworthy extent of production, which encompasses all essential production, is conducted at the central headquarters in Neu-Ulm, Germany. With modern engineering procedures and expertly devised Quality Assurance Department for testing, the pioneering leadership is unleashed to set new standards for the future, while simultaneously fulfilling the standards of today. Zimmer MedizinSysteme GmbH is CE and ISO 13 485 certified.

About Corscience GmbH & Co. KG:
Corscience is a successful medium-sized medical engineering company with the business areas R&D services, OEM Solutions, and Products & Systems. From customized development to ready-to-install OEM modules and their own medical engineering devices, Corscience offers everything from one source. The focus here is mainly on the areas of cardiovascular diagnostics and therapy, wireless sensor systems and telemetry, as well as signal analysis and algorithms. Corscience is certified according to DIN EN ISO 9001, DIN EN ISO 13485 and MDD Annex II and can therefore put medical products on the market, also for their customers. The company is located in Erlangen, in the middle of “Medical Valley”. Founded in 2001, Corscience currently employs a team of 42 highly qualified people.

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Press contact:
Marlies Maier
Public relations

Tel.: 09131 / 977986-389
Fax: 09131 / 977986-59
e-mail: maier@corscience.de
Website: www.corscience.de