Optimization of Varioptic Drive Frequency and USB Communications for Computational Biophysics (2012)
Undergraduates: Patrick Heenan, Alfred Zhong
Faculty Advisor: Russell Taylor
Department: Physics & Astronomy
Science at the subcellular level is developing astonishing improvements in medicine, manufacturing, and knowledge of the world. Humankind has reaped a plethora of benefits from these sub-micrometer studies. Through studies that continue to push the boundaries of scientific innovation, additional advances will be made in the future. This project will expand existing cell-scale research by engineering hardware and software to aid in biophysical, microrheology experiments. The project aims to improve the observing quality of the lenses and inter-computer communications used in Panoptes project, a high-throughput, force microscopy project of Computer Integrated Systems for Microscopy and Manipulation (CISMM) at UNC-CH. The observations will be improved via an auto-tune routine for the electronically-focused lenses being used in Panoptes. The communications will be improved via the creation of a USB-based communication protocol between different computers used in data acquisition and analysis. Both improvements will be obtained via applications of C code to Texas Instruments Micro-Controllers.