An Ultimate Guide to Medical Sensors

There are plenty of medical devices that consist of medical sensors for the detection of physical, chemical, and biological procedures of the human body. Medical sensors mainly help in transmitting, regulating, and reporting signals. With the development of minimally invasive sensors, doctors and medical science have received several advantages, such as-

Doctors can now send sensors to different inaccessible regions of our body and know the condition of the area.
Medical sensors have significantly helped to treat cryo cancer. It has become possible to eliminate cancer by freezing and heating through sensors.
When it comes to identifying and minimizing disruptions in body functioning, medical sensors are useful.
Sensors minimize the energy consumption of permanent implants.
Above all, doctors can increase the implant’s life span with the help of medical sensors.

As there is substantial demand for medical-grade sensors, advanced manufacturing technologies are getting involved to make high-standard and precise sensors for critical medical applications. To produce minimally invasive medical sensors, manufacturers need to prepare the electromagnetic micro-coils by winding the ultra-fine wires around different supports. A manufacturing company should have advanced custom-made equipment and efficient technologies to handle the micro-coil production method. Besides designing and developing the equipment in-house, manufacturers also need to have sufficient knowledge about the coil winding process.

Essential Criteria for the Micro-Coil Manufacturing Process:

Micro-coil manufacturing process is a difficult task to handle and a manufacturing company should fulfil certain requirements.

When a manufacturer is making micro-coils for medical sensors, he must follow the specifications that the client has provided.
To produce high-quality micro-coils, manufacturers should follow certain standards throughout the production process. Before releasing the final product, a manufacturing company should conduct various quality checks to ensure there are no faults in the coils.
Manufacturers should deploy specialized equipment during the manufacturing process depending on the requirements of the coils. Therefore, instead of purchasing equipment from the market, one should design the machinery based on the application area and then build them in-house.
The micro-coil production method has to be ISO 13485 approved. The manufacturers have to allow the clients to investigate the production process.
Besides maintaining quality, manufacturers also need to maintain the traceability of the coils. Therefore, if any fault occurs, they can trace the materials and collect essential information, including production date, employees involved in the production process, etc.

Applications of Medical Grade Sensors:

In the medical field, there are plentiful applications of sensors, such as-

Diagnostics:

Sensors help in conducting wireless communication as a part of miniature implants.

Active Implants:

Active implants are useful for various purposes, such as monitoring and controlling miniature pacemakers and deep brain stimulation. Sensors are necessary to build these active implants.

Navigation and Orientation:

Sensors that are used for navigation and orientation are helpful for plenty of applications, including stent positioning, targeted radiation catheters, implanted markers, endoscopic manipulation, targeted drug delivery, and highly accurate ablations.

Therapeutic Applications:

Medical sensors have also significant therapeutic applications, for instance, for the production devices that help in electrophysiology treatments (cardiac and neural) and electricity-based ablations (RF and microwave).

Temperature Measurement:

Temperature sensors that involve tiny thermocouples are useful to measure temperature. In the temperature sensor, manufacturers build connections between thermocouples and tiny wires with the help of thermal compression bonding technology.

Orthopedic and Dental Treatments:

Sensors are useful to prepare devices that work with electromagnetic pulses. These devices have substantial applications in dental and orthopedic treatments.

The Production of Medical Sensors:

As medical sensors consist of miniature electromagnetic coils, therefore, it is important to understand the production method of these coils. The miniature coils are produced through the winding of very tiny conductive wires. The diameter of the conductive wires can be down to 9 microns or 59 AWG or 0.00035 inches. Manufacturers use a core, pin, or other supports with different shapes to wind the wires around them. During this process, manufacturers also require to join two different tiny wires. Because of the very small diameter of the wires, traditional heat-based connectivity methods are ineffective to build a connection between the wires. For this reason, modern custom-made manufacturers use the thermo-pressure bonding method for the connectivity solution. This method helps to build strong and reliable connections between ultra-fine wires.