ABSTRACT
Immunoassay is a biological technique that is used for detecting and measuring target compounds. Recently, the use of immunoassay techniques has moved into the environmental arena. With the increasing use and need for environmental assay techniques, quick and efficient methods of automatic detection and measurement are needed. A positive immunoreaction results in a measurable colorimetric reaction when an antigen binds to the antibody under appropriate thin-film material configuration. By applying the antibody to a test plate surface in a specific pattern formation, an automatic pattern recognition software routine along with specialized electronics can be utilized to automatically analyze the results from an assay exposure. The use of automated equipment eliminates the need for highly trained technicians to analyze the test results. This paper reports a system that automatically reads a test plate and converts the data into a meaningful image representation. This image can then be analyzed and the positive reactions are automatically identified as a particular object. The object identification routine utilizes an intelligent probability weighting function based upon feature parameters extracted from the object.
