Patent ID: 8140300

Claim:
A flow system for reliable multiparameter data acquisition and particle sorting and enumeration, the system comprising: a fluidics system comprising a moving fluid column within which particles of a sample move along a common sample path; a detection system for collecting one or more signals from each particle as it passes one or more detection stations along the common sample path, each signal being assigned a signal value to form a multiparameter data point for each particle, the detection system collecting in a succession of different time intervals such multiparameter data points in one or more predetermined subsets to form a data profile for each of such time intervals; and a control system operationally associated with the fluidics system and detection system, the control system determining a data profile characteristic of the current data profile and comparing the data profile characteristic either with that of a predetermined prior data profile or with a predetermined limit, and whenever such data profile characteristic exceeds the predetermined limit or differs from the data profile characteristic of the predetermined prior data profile, the control system actuating a corrective action.