Patent ID: 8358418

Claim:
A method of real-time processing and monitoring, comprising: blending a material of interest with a secondary material; separating a source light into an illumination light and a calibration light; illuminating the blended materials with the illumination light; dividing light carrying information about the blended materials with a beam splitter into a first light portion and a second light portion, the first light portion and the second light portion having substantially similar characteristics; after dividing the light with the beam splitter, directing the first light portion through at least one multivariate optical element to produce a first signal; detecting the first signal at a first detector; directing the second light portion in a direction of a second detector, the second detector configured to detect the second light portion; detecting a portion of the calibration light at the first detector; and determining, in real time, at least one selected property of at least one of the blended materials based upon a first detector output and a second detector output.