Laser System for Biological Tissue Thickness Measurement and Cutting

RIFTEK:One of the most important indicators of the quality of biological tissue (pericardium) used in the creation of prostheses for heart valves and blood vessels is the uniformity of its thickness.

Therefore, the measurement of the thickness of the tissue before cutting is a prime step in the creation of high-quality prostheses. Another important step is selection the areas with maximum thickness homogeneity and the last step is precision laser cutting of the tissue according to the given patterns, placed on areas of uniform thickness.

Our new system automatically executes of all these stages. The popular laser cutting (engraving) CNC machine is taken as the basic element of the system. We placed 2D laser scanner RF627.Blue-25/10-8/11 on CNC XY translation system near the cutting laser lens and developed special software to control the entire system.

Work with the system is divided into several stages:

1. Calibration. At this stage, laser scanning of the object plate surface is performed and a map of its heights is collected in the scanner coordinate system.
2. Measuring the thickness of the tissue and building its height map. At this stage, the surface of the biological tissue placed on the object plate is scanned. The thickness of the tissue is calculated as the difference between the heights of the surface of the tissue and the object plate.
3. Software placement of prosthesis patterns selected from the database on the height map of the tissue.
4. Laser cutting of the material in accordance with the location of the patterns.