Telephone : + 61 3 9596 8065 or
Fax : + 61 3 9596 8369 or
Email :
Here's the full story :
Autoscan Systems Pty. Ltd. is a manufacturer of scientific instruments.
Our early beginnings go back to 1979, when our "forebears" created a
brand-new tool for use in geological microscope-related techniques.
We were incorporated as a company in 1984, and have since become the
world's leading manufacturer and supplier of automated microscope stages.
Our equipment, which has sold well in 20 countries to date, takes the
tedium out of techniques associated with optical microscopes, and is
known and respected as the "Rolls Royce"[TM] of microscope stages.
We have been awarded a number of Excellence Awards, and our customer base
is growing at a steady rate, as is the mailing list for our newsletters.
The Autoscan stage is essentially a piece of robotic equipment. It
consists of a three-axis motor-driven platform which replaces the "stage"
that normally carries the glass slide on an optical microscope. Typically,
those stages are attached to their microscopes by a few screws.
Replacement of a standard microscope stage with the Autoscan stage is a
simple procedure which can be carried out with standard tools in only a
few minutes. Our stage can be fitted to most popular optical laboratory
microscopes.
Our Autoscan stages use dc servo motors for the X and Y (left-right and
forward-backward) and Z (vertical, or focus) motions. The fact that the
focus motion is built right into our stages represents a major plus in
many applications, as it leaves the microscope's focus mechanism free for
separate manipulation. To the best of our knowledge, ours is the only
microscope stage in the world which incorporates integral motorised movement in
all 3 axes.
Our stages move in sub-micron increments in all three axes. (A human hair,
for reference, is typically 50 to 80 microns in cross-section - thickness depends on colour). Movement of the
stage is initiated by means of a special 3-axis joystick. The stage is
controlled by an electronic controller box, to which commands are in turn
issued from a computer.
In its original geological application (known as Fission Track Dating),
the Autoscan stage assisted in the comparison of corresponding points
contained in two images which are randomly aligned in space, which are
mirror-images, and which are situated at different heights on the
microscope slide. The difficulties of such a technique cannot be
overestimated : our equipment is said to save 80% of an experienced
operator's time. The resulting relief from tedium provided by our
TRAKSCAN package has ensured world-wide acceptance of our system.
In our excursions into other fields of endeavour, we have made contact
with specialists working in the fields of Forensic Science, Telemedicine,
Blood Products, Radiation Protection, Pathology, Cancer Treatment and many others. Some
of our current specialised application packages cater for the use of our
system by specialists in these fields.
One of our exciting products is the package which we orginally called ALFASCAN, and
which ran under the DOS[TM] environment. This package was totally
re-written under Windows NT[TM]. The new product is
called AutoScope[TM], and can be run either with our AS3000B stage for upright microscopes or our AS3000i stage for inverted microscopes. The package also includes a CCD camera and an image-processor board running in an IBM-compatible computer.
One application for AutoScope is in radiation-protection. The development of these packages is the result of a
collaborative effort in conjunction with the Australian Radiation
Laboratories (ARL), an Australian Federal Government radiation monitoring
authority. In this application, the software is able to detect, classify and store the location of
so-called "alpha tracks" in solid-state detectors. An alpha track is a feature which is indicative of the passage of nuclear alpha-particle radiation through a specialized
plastic such as CR39, a specially manufactured type of polycarbonate. The radiation causes damage to the plastic structure which can
be made optically visible by means of a chemical etching technique. The
resulting tracks (whose shapes resemble bullet-holes) can take the form
of circles, ellipses or horseshoes, depending on the angle at which the
radiation enters the plastic. The frequency of occurrence of the tracks
gives a direct indication of the amount of radiation received.
The alpha-track effect is used in monitoring the amount of radiation
to which personnel in relevant areas are exposed, by means of personal
special plastic monitoring badges. Such areas include hospital radiography
and laboratory areas as well as the areas surrounding nuclear reactors
and mines. Personnel exposure is monitored on an ongoing basis, but the
counting of the density of tracks is a tedious process which is generally
carried out manually.
The automation of this process not only enables the avoidance of tedium
and the resultant high variability of counts (due to fatigue in a given
operator, and variation between operators), and not only provides a system
for ensuring that an entire area under the microscope is scanned
systematically without missing or double-counting any fields of view, but
has in fact resulted in the gathering of statistical information which has
never before been available from manual techniques. This information (such
as the area and circularity of each track) is expected to result in new
insights into radiation which may include some "world-firsts". Early
experiments have indicated a good correlation between results from analysis
with our equipment and results averaged from analysis by a number of
human operators. ARL has written a paper which documents these
encouraging results. Please contact us for copies.
Our product has been featured in many local and overseas publications,
including magazines in the UK, India, the USA and Japan. As early as 1986, we
gained the coveted QANTAS/AUSTRADE export award for export excellence,
and since that time we have either gained, or been nominated for, a
variety of other export excellence-related awards. We are extremely
pleased to be able to make a meaningful contribution to Australia's
export effort.
The four key strengths which we believe make our business successful are :
1. A high-quality product which answers the needs of the market, and
which allows our staff to be convinced of its excellence,
2. Dedicated and knowledgeable staff, committed to ensuring that the
product and the company succeed, and able to provide superior
customer service,
3. A market which recognises the advantages conferred by our equipment.
These advantages are the tangible time-savings and the avoidance
of tedious aspects of the work with microscopes. Such advantages
are, to some extent, "recession-proof", since they translate to
reduced labour costs and improved quality and quantity of output.
4. A company ethos based on absolute committment to our customers, and
a recognition that a business is only as good as its customers and
potential customers perceive it to be.
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Further information about our products - hardware and software
Countries in which Autoscan systems are installed
AS3000B stage for upright microscopes - photo and specifications
AS3000i stage and AS3500 focus attachment for inverted microscopes - photo and specifications
Some typical applications for our systems
What people are saying about us
Explanation of the benefits of dc motors compared to stepper motors
Free AutoScope Demonstration CD
Free Trakscan Demonstration CD
Download Documents : Manuals and Brochures
Forum : Case Studies and Feedback
C-Tick accreditation and the EMC framework
Autoscan Hall of Fame - a tribute to our VIPs
Contact Details
Autoscan Systems Pty. Ltd.
| Street Address : |
4/293 Bay Street, Brighton 3186 Victoria Australia |
| Postal Address : |
PO Box 112, Ormond 3204 Victoria Australia |
| Telephone : |
+61 3 9596 8065 / +61 3 9596 8092 |
| Facsimile : |
+61 3 9596 8369 |
| Email : |
|
| Geographic coordinates : |
Lat. 37 deg. 52 min. South, 145 deg. East |
| Melway streetmap reference : |
67 F9 |
| Ham Radio World-Wide Locator (WW-LOC) : |
QF 22 md |
| Webmaster (Mike Krochmal VK3KRO) : |
|
| NEW URL ! : |
http://www.autoscan.com.au/ |
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