This User Manual describes the CAM1 Capillary Anemometer CapiScope System. This system consists of the CAM1 probe and the CapiScope Processing Unit.
The CAM1 measures blood cell velocity using a low power near infrared laser. This is focused to a 10 micron diameter spot which can be positioned onto the apex of any capillary that is visible, or barely visible through the skin surface. The built in CCD camera allows continuous monitoring of the capillary position on the CapiScope monitor.
The low power laser beam is reflected by blood cells at the focal point moving perpendicular to the skin surface. The frequency of the reflected beam is Doppler shifted, the shift being directly proportional to the velocity of the reflecting blood cell. This is detected in the CAM1.
The Doppler signal is captured and digitised by the CapiScope Processor Unit. The software processes the signal to extract the Capillary Blood cell Velocity (CBV) and provides the user display, control and data storage.
The CapiScope software can also record and play back video and includes functions for capillary diameter,density and velocity measurement using video correlation.