Optimized marks for qualitative material discrimination

A method for the automatic qualitative discrimination of liquid samples based on their absorption spectrum in the ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared regions is presented. An alternative implementation of conventional spectrum matching methodologies is proposed working towards the improvement of the response time of the discrimination system. The method takes advantage of not making assumptions on the probability density function of the data and it is also capable of automatic outlier removal. Optimized marks are obtained after PCA application on the absorption spectral data. The feasibility of the algorithm has been validated with the automatic discrimination of different oil samples (seeds and olive) that have been measured with an optical fiber absorption spectroscopy set-up. The system here proposed could be easily and efficiently implemented in hardware platforms improving the system performance.