Patent ID: 9354182
Filing Date: 2016-05-31
CPC Classification: A61L,G01N

Claim Text:
1. A method for detecting presence of soil on an article, said method comprising: introducing a luminescent agent to a detergent during a wash cycle of a washing apparatus, wherein the luminescent agent is a fluorescent agent that emits fluorescent light, said luminescent agent bound to soil present on the article; rinsing the article to remove unbound luminescent agent; exposing the article to laser light; detecting light emanating from said article and generating light data corresponding thereto, said light emanating from said article including ambient light reflected by the article and light emitted by exciting the luminescent agent bound to the soil; filtering the light emanating from said article at first and second predetermined frequencies; and determining the presence of soil on the article based upon the filtered light received by a light detector, wherein said step of determining the presence of soil includes spectrally discriminating between the fluorescence light and the ambient light reflections based upon a measure of saturation of light intensities of combined fluorescence light and ambient light at the first frequency relative to light intensities of ambient light at the second frequency.