Consumer Electronics
Beating the Golden Hour: Engineering CEREBO, a Handheld Diagnostic for Brain Hemorrhage
Hardening a laboratory NIRS technique into a handheld, radiation-free device that flags intracranial hemorrhage in under 2 minutes — reaching 97% clinical sensitivity and a place in India's national medical device registry.
Client
Bioscan Research Pvt Ltd, a deep-tech medical diagnostics company. Their goal was to move neuro-diagnostics out of expensive hospital infrastructure and into an affordable, portable point-of-care device.
Problem Statement
Bioscan’s core IP — detecting the light-absorption signature of blood using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) — was proven in a lab setting but commercially unviable. Reaching clinical deployment meant clearing three real-world barriers: laboratory-grade optical sensors were too bulky and sensitive for handheld use; in a portable form factor, electromagnetic noise from the battery and processor threatened the integrity of sub-millivolt brain-signal data; and the architecture had to work across every patient demographic, from infants to the elderly, without any clinical preparation like head-shaving.
Solution
Techshlok re-engineered the laboratory setup into a medical-grade integrated system, hardening the electronics for clinical environments rather than treating the lab result as a finished product.
Approach
Miniaturized Optical Path
A 3.5cm sensor-probe geometry was architected to sit between hair follicles, so light reliably reaches the 3.0cm cranial depth needed for hematoma detection — without requiring the patient’s head to be shaved or prepped.
ML-Edge Integration
The diagnostic algorithm runs locally on the device, giving an objective red/green alert in under 2 minutes, with no dependency on a network connection or a remote server.
Power Integrity Engineering
Ultra-stable voltage regulation was developed to prevent diagnostic drift, so the device stays accurate from the first patient scanned on a charge to the last.
Digital Reporting — The Cerebo Cloud
A Bluetooth/cloud sync feature generates an instant PDF report, letting paramedics transmit findings to a neurosurgeon while the patient is still in transit.
Overcoming the Signal Noise
The primary technical challenge was internal optical interference: in a miniaturized device, the processor sits close enough to the NIRS sensors that its electromagnetic and thermal noise can mimic a bleed signal. Techshlok addressed this with advanced shielding and multi-layer PCB isolation to protect the sub-millivolt sensor signals — and, because the resulting architecture is 100% radiation-free unlike a CT scan, the device is also safe for repeated use on pregnant women and infants, a significant regulatory advantage.
Result
Techshlok’s hardware work turned a proven lab technique into a manufacturable clinical device — one of the most decorated medical devices to come out of the Indian startup ecosystem.
Business & Global Impact
- Clinical validation — multi-center studies at NIMHANS and AIIMS confirmed 94.1% overall accuracy, with 97% clinical sensitivity in triaging TBI patients.
- Global recognition — 50+ awards worldwide, including recognition from Qualcomm, Tata Trusts, and NASSCOM.
- Regulatory milestone — developed into a TRL-6 system safe for high-risk groups like pregnant women and infants, owing to its fully radiation-free design.
- Production-ready — moved from a fragile proof of concept to a durable, manufacturable product, now part of the ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) national registry.
