Patent ID: 8094916

Claim:
A device for scanning biological growth plates that carry biological agents, the device comprising: a multi-color illumination system including light emitting diodes that selectively illuminates a biological growth plate with different illumination colors; a monochromatic camera oriented to capture an image of the biological growth plate; and a processor that controls the camera to capture two or more monochromatic images of the biological growth plate during illumination, wherein the processor combines the two or more monochromatic images to form a composite image of the biological growth plate and processes the composite image to generate a colony count associated with the biological growth plate, wherein the colony count is indicative of a counted number of colonies of the biological agents in the composite image, wherein the processor independently controls the light emitting diodes for different illumination colors so as to compensate for nonuniformities to achieve a degree of uniformity in the two or more monochromatic images; wherein the device quantifies an amount of bacterial colonies per unit area on the biological growth plate, and compares the amount to a threshold colony count to determine whether a sample on the biological growth plate is acceptable.