PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15867213
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-01
Publication Date: 2018-07
Patent Classification: ["356", "338000"]

Abstract:
A system ( 1 ) for detecting microscopic objects located in a flowing fluid. It comprises a lighting system ( 205, 305 ) comprising at least one LED diode ( 605 ) for supplying light to the flowing fluid; an image capture system ( 201, 601 ) configured to capture a sequence of images of the fluid. The image capture system comprises a camera comprising a plurality of pixels. The sequence of images is processed and the presence and shape of microscopic objects is determined. The lighting system ( 205, 305 ) is configured to supply high power light pulses having amplitude Io′ and very short time duration T ON , the time instant at which said pulses are triggered being synchronized with the time instants at which pixels in the image capture system ( 601 ) start to capture an image frame. The amplitude Io′ and time duration T ON  of the light pulses are controlled by calculating, from the light intensity (I frame ) of each captured image frame, a pulse amplitude setpoint (PAS) and a pulse duration setpoint (PDS) for adjusting respective potentiometers ( 651, 652 ) configured to respectively fix the amplitude Io′ and pulse duration T ON  by executing an algorithm that prioritizes amplitude rises over pulse duration rises. The lighting system ( 305 ) comprises an energy loading system ( 670 ) configured to make the amplitude requirement and response time of the lighting system ( 305 ) independent from the power supply unit. Method for detecting microscopic objects suspended in a flowing fluid.

Claim (Index 13):
A method for detecting microscopic objects located in a flowing fluid, comprising:\n supplying light emitted by at least one LED to a flowing fluid having microscopic objects suspended thereon; capturing a sequence of images of the flowing fluid by means of an image capture system comprising a plurality of pixels; processing said sequence of images and determining the presence of microscopic objects within said flowing fluid and the shape thereof, the method being characterized by:\n at said image capture system, capturing an image frame every T frame  seconds, T frame  being higher than or equal to T EXP , wherein T EXP  is the exposure time of said pixels comprised in said image capture system; \n providing a strobe signal from said image capture system; \n for each frame, calculating a pulse amplitude setpoint and a pulse duration setpoint from the intensity of each frame by executing an algorithm that prioritizes rises in the pulse amplitude rather than rises in the pulse duration; \n at a pulse generator, receiving said pulse duration setpoint and generating from said pulse duration setpoint and from said strobe signal a pulsed signal having period T frame  and having pulses of duration T ON , T ON  \u00abT frame , said duration T ON  being obtained from said pulse duration setpoint and said strobe signal being used for synchronizing the pulses of duration T ON  with the time instant at which the pixels in the image capture system start to capture an image; \n calculating a reference voltage of duration T ON  from said pulse amplitude setpoint, said reference voltage being used for obtaining a polarization current of said at least one LED; \n providing a voltage enabling to provide a current Io\u2032 to said at least one LED at pulses of duration T ON , said voltage being provided by a an RC network comprising at least one capacitor and a resistor, wherein said at least one capacitor works as a pulse energy storage means and said resistor regulates the charging speed of the a pulse energy storage means, said RC network being configured for the at least one capacitor to become fully charged in a time duration T frame \u2212T ON , wherein T frame  is the time period between two consecutive image frames captured by the image capture system.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 32.0
- Percentile: 86.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.52252
- Patent Class: 356.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: True
- Related Applications: ['15316998', '12893819', '15561965', '13060044', '12172524']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.6345907501735847
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.4797795912823078
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.619109634284457
- Mean Citation Score: 145.32367400000004
- Max Citation Score: 152.24892
- Similarity Product: 106.9597644831705

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 0
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test