Michael A. Carvajal

Full view of the entire fixture. The pulley-shaped counter-balancers at the top of the frame attach to the thermal camera rig to relieve test operators of the weight of the rig while adjusting the camera's height to accommodate the different-length devices being tested.

A close-up view of the rear side of the custom "frost plate" that makes use of an array of Peltier modules to rapidly remove heat from the front side of the frost plate and expel it away from the plate via fan-assisted heat sinks. This cooling effect, coupled with the dark color of the black anodized plate, provides maximum thermal contrast between the heated tissue being observed by the camera and the black plate which serves as a thermal backdrop.

One configuration of this test fixture allows the attachment of a "frost hood" to the frame right in front of the IR camera. Like the "frost plate" that mounts to the bottom of the fixture for testing horizontally-oriented devices, the "frost hood" is used when a device is oriented vertically (and therefore the thermal-contrasting backdrop solution cannot be mounted to the fixture's base).

A close-up view of the thermal camera's support rig, which features fine-movement single-axis stages to finely adjust the relative XY-position of the camera relative to the device being tested. A sample tissue coupon is shown dangling in front of the base-mounted "frost plate" via an easily-removable clip system.

The sliding base plate of the test fixture features mounting holes that are compatible with an array of other smaller test fixtures also designed for the same client, optimizing and streamlining the process of using already-available device-holding fixtures together.