Patent ID: 8679315

Claim:
Method for the detection of the presence of particles (BEADS) possibly present in points of stable equilibrium (PEQ) of a force field (F) acting on said particles, generated by an array of electrodes (EL), comprising the steps of: i. deactivating the force field (F); ii. measuring, in at least a time interval following the deactivation, a grey level generated by first sensors (PIXEL_IJ) associated with said stable equilibrium points (PEQ) and by second sensors (PIXEL_REF) associated with space regions not occupied by particles because of the current configuration of said force field (F), wherein the time interval is a function of a dynamic of settling and/or Brownian movements to which the particles are subjected with the deactivating of the force field; iii. reactivating the force field (F); iv. repeating the steps from i) to iii) a number of times, wherein the number of times is substantially comparable with convergence rate, of the variance of the grey level measured on said second sensors to its asymptotic value; v. classifying a point of equilibrium as occupied by particles if, in the considered temporal series of measurements, the standard deviation of the grey level measured on the first sensors is higher than a pre-fixed threshold (THR).