About

Located in Waltham, Massachussets, Open Source Instruments (OSI) specializes in electrical engineering design, manufacturing, and consulting, with a special interests in opto-electronics and wireless telemetry. We have been designing and manufacturing instruments for scientists for over twenty years. Most of our products, such as the Subcutaneous Transmitters (SCTs), are a result of a researcher approached us with a specific technical road block.

History

OSI was incorporated in 2004, while we were working together at the Brandeis University High Energy Physics (BNDHEP) Department. At that time, we were in the middle of the construction of the End-Cap Alignment System of the ATLAS detector, one of four particle detectors being assembled for deployment on the Large Hadronic Collider (LHC) at CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research). We designed, calibrated, and manufactured thousands of cameras and light sources, shipped them all to Geneva, and installed them in the detector cavern over a period of ten years. This work was funded entirely by the US Department of Energy (DoE).

Christoph Amelung (left) and Kevan Hashemi (right) inside the ATLAS detector, CERN, circa 2009.

We founded OSI in order to satisfy two requests for metrology instruments from the ALICE detector at CERN. We supplied the metrology instruments and data acquisition system required by their Geometric Monitoring System (GMS) and Space Frame Monitor (SFM). These instruments were the same BCAMs we developed at BNDHEP, but now manufactured at OSI with funding from a European agency. We subsequently built BCAMs for the CMS, LHCb, and detectors as well.

Testing alignment bars before installation, CERN, circa 2014.

Kevan Hashemi, the OSI president, has been working on alignment systems for HEP experiments since 1992, when we worked at Harvard Univerity on the alignment of the ill-fated Superconducting Supercollider (SSC). In 1995 he started at Brandeis University and spent the next twenty-six years working on the alignment of the ATLAS detector. He now has a visiting scientist position at Tufts University, and continues to attend bi-weekly meetings of the ATLAS alignment group.

Kevan Hashemi, in the LHC tunnel, circa 2008.

In the period 2006-2022, OSI designed and manufactured several generations of an optical Wire Position Sensor (WPS) for use in test stands at CERN (Geneva) and NSRL (Hefei). Metrology instrumentation for particle accelerators and detectors remains an important part of the company's business.

Wire position sensors deployed in the CLIC test stand, CERN, 2012.

In the period 2005-2010, we designed our Subcutaneous Transmitter (SCT) in collaboration with the Institute of Neurology (ION) at University College London (UCL). The SCT is a water-proof, battery-powered, wireless sensor designed for implantation laboratory animal. The first SCTs were single-channel EEG (electro-encephalogram) transmitters for rats. We now make four-channel SCTs that record EEG, ECG, EMG, and EGG in rats, and two-channel SCTs that record EEG and ECG in mice.

The original single-antenna, hetrodyning data receiver, under test in 2007. Long discontinued, this receiver is still fully supported by OSI in the field.

A critical component of the SCT system is our choice of Subcutaneous Leads (SCL). We use stretchy, flexible, silicone-insulated springs to make our SCLs, and these leads, and these have proven to be resistant to corrosion and fatigue for many months of implantation. We sell hundreds of these leads every year to other manufacturers of implantable devices.

Helical steel wires coated with silicone with droplets of water.

We encapsulate our SCTs in epoxy and silicone, which makes them as small as possible. But epoxy and silicone are permeable to water vapor. If any cavities exist within the epoxy, they will fill with condensed water vapor within a few days of implantation. Corrosion caused by condensed water is the leading cause of failure of our implantable devices. Starting in 2014, we poach on in ten implantable devices in water at 60°C to measure their corrosion resistance.

Rust on the battery within silicone encapsulation as a result of condensation during implantation, circa 2014.

We began work on an implantable optical stimulator in 2012, in collaboration with ION/UCL with funding provided by the Wellcomme Trust. We record our development of a micropower radio receiver and an efficient fiber-coupled light-emitting diode in our ISL Development blog. In 2020, we received funding from the National Institute of Health (NIH) to continue development of our implantable stimulators in collaboration with Cornell University. We demonstrated the efficacy of the Implantable Stimulator-Transponder (IST) and Fiber-Coupled LED (FCLED) for optogenetic experiments in 2021 in collaboration with ION/UCL.

Optogenetic response provoked by IST and FCLED. Click to see report with videos.

In 2024, we released our Telemetry Control Box (TCB-B16). This substantial box provides sixteen independent, direct-detection receivers for our telemetry sensors, as well as sixteen independent command transmitters. The receivers and transmitters share the same antennas, so that we have an all-in-one telemetry controller for large animal experiments.

Coaxial connectors on the back of this box provide reception and transmission with sixteen independent antennas.

Our telemetry sensors now include an Implantable Inertial Sensor (IIS), and we are currently working on the developmet and testing of a new Blood Pressure Monitor (BPM) in collaboration with ION/UCL and Duzce University in Turkey.

Conferences and Exhibitions

OSI president, Kevan Hashemi, converses with an interested attendee at the American Epilepsy Society meeting in Los Angeles, 2024.
Hashemi pictured with customer Diogo Vila Verde of UCB Pharma, at the UCB Pharma poster session during the American Epilepsy Society meeting in Los Angeles, 2024.

We attended the International Conference on Cortical Spreading Depolorization (iCSD) in Turkey in November 2024, and the American Epilepsy Society (AES) meeting in Los Angeles in December 2024.


Modified: This page was last modified on 10-Feb-25 15:55:06