previous | portfolio | next

Medtronic Atakr II
Medical Device
www.medtronic.com

The Atakr II is a cardiac ablation device used for the treatment of atrial fibrillation and other heart problems. Base2 was involved from the very start of development which allowed a high degree of collaboration between the software, electrical, and mechanical engineering teams. The result is a software design that addresses all the product requirements and engineering constraints in an efficient and elegant fashion.

The software was written entirely in ANSI C and simulated on a desktop computer. This was done to save time in the overall schedule since the hardware design cycle was very long. Using this approach, the initial software prototype was available 5 months before the initial hardware prototype. The feature-complete software simulation was available 1 month before the initial hardware prototype. When the hardware prototype arrived, it took a mere four days to port the simulated software to the target hardware, a tribute to the quality of the prototype hardware and to the fact that most of the code was developed and debugged under simulation.

Features:

· fail-safe design
· real-time data recording and reporting
· instrument calibration via software
· software control of analog hardware
· real-time clock
· three alphanumeric LCD displays
· serial link capable of 115 kbps for debug and automated test
· foreign language support with dynamic download of custom characters