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CN-117095185-B - Substance preparation evaluation system

CN117095185BCN 117095185 BCN117095185 BCN 117095185BCN-117095185-B

Abstract

The present invention relates to a substance preparation and assessment system and provides automated substance preparation and assessment systems and methods for preparing and assessing fluid substances, such as samples with body fluids, in containers and/or dispensing tips. The systems and methods can detect volume, evaluate integrity, and check particle concentration in the container and/or the dispensing tip.

Inventors

  • High snow in valleys
  • Wu Meiyimu
  • Leira Nazimi
  • Arthur Conan Dewitt
  • Stephanie Yancey
  • Marie Willett
  • Rebecca Buzak
  • Matt Barnabey
  • An Xiongda
  • FUJII SHIGERU

Assignees

  • 贝克曼库尔特有限公司

Dates

Publication Date
20260512
Application Date
20171027
Priority Date
20161028

Claims (20)

  1. 1. A system for evaluating a fluid substance, the system comprising: A sample pipetting device configured to at least partially engage a dispensing tip, the sample pipetting device configured to aspirate fluid material into the dispensing tip, the dispensing tip having at least one reference line; an image capturing unit configured to capture an image of at least a portion of the dispensing tip; At least one computing device configured to: -identifying the at least one reference line of the dispensing tip from the portion of the image of the dispensing tip; Determining at least one characteristic of the at least one reference line, and -Comparing the at least one characteristic of the at least one reference line with a threshold value, the threshold value being indicative of misalignment of the dispensing tip.
  2. 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one reference line comprises a first reference line and a second reference line formed on the dispensing tip.
  3. 3. The system of any one of claims 1-2, wherein the at least one reference line comprises a first reference line and a second reference line formed on the dispensing tip, and Wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to: -obtaining said at least one characteristic of said at least one reference line based on: -determining the length of the first reference line; -determining the length of the second reference line, and -Determining the angle of a straight line with respect to at least one of said first reference line and said second reference line, said straight line connecting a predetermined point of said first reference line and a predetermined point of said second reference line, and -Determining the misalignment of the dispensing tip based on at least one of the length of the first reference line, the length of the second reference line and the angle of the straight line.
  4. 4. The system of claim 1 or 2, wherein the system is configured to: In response to determining the misalignment, the sample pipetting device is prevented from aspirating the fluid substance into the dispensing tip.
  5. 5. The system of claim 1 or 2, wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to: In response to determining the misalignment, the fluid substance is marked and/or initiated to be drawn into the dispensing tip.
  6. 6. The system of claim 1 or 2, wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to: identifying the at least one reference line of the dispensing tip from the portion of the image of the dispensing tip; Identifying a surface layer of the fluid substance within the dispensing tip in the image; determining a distance between the at least one reference line and the surface layer, and Determining a volume of the fluid substance by converting the distance into the volume of the fluid substance based on correlation data comprising information about a correlation between the volume within the dispensing tip and distances from the at least one reference line to a plurality of surface layers within the dispensing tip.
  7. 7. The system according to claim 6, Wherein the computing device is configured to determine the reference line based on pattern matching and/or segmentation of the captured image.
  8. 8. The system according to claim 6, Wherein the computing device is configured to search the captured image for a pattern representative of the reference line.
  9. 9. The system according to claim 6, Wherein the computing device is configured to compare at least a portion of the captured image to a reference image.
  10. 10. The system according to claim 9, Wherein the computing device is configured to determine a match rate and/or a correlation value for the portion of the captured image and the reference image.
  11. 11. The system of claim 1 or 2, wherein the at least one reference line comprises a first reference line and a second reference line formed on the dispensing tip; Wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to: determining a length of the first reference line in the image; determining a length of the second reference line in the image; Determining an angle of a straight line relative to at least one of the first reference line and the second reference line, the straight line connecting a predetermined point of the first reference line and a predetermined point of the second reference line; Determining the misalignment of the dispensing tip based on at least one of the length of the first reference line, the length of the second reference line, and the angle of the straight line, and The volume of the fluid substance is adjusted based on the determination of the misalignment.
  12. 12. The system of claim 1 or 2, wherein the misalignment of the dispensing tip comprises a side misalignment and a depth misalignment.
  13. 13. The system of claim 1 or 2, wherein the at least one reference line comprises a first reference line and a second reference line formed on the dispensing tip, and Wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to: identifying a predetermined point of the first reference line in the image; identifying a predetermined point of the second reference line in the image; Defining an alignment line connecting the predetermined point of the first reference line and the predetermined point of the second reference line; determining an angle of the alignment line relative to at least one of the first reference line and the second reference line, and The angle is compared to a threshold angle value that indicates a lateral misalignment of the dispensing tip.
  14. 14. A system according to claim 3, wherein the predetermined point of the first reference line is a center point of the first reference line in the image and the predetermined point of the second reference line is a center point of the second reference line in the image.
  15. 15. The system of claim 13, wherein the system is configured to: In response to determining that the angle of the alignment line relative to at least one of the first reference line and the second reference line meets and/or exceeds the threshold angle value, the sample pipetting device is prevented from aspirating the fluid substance into the dispensing tip.
  16. 16. The system of claim 13, wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to: in response to determining that the angle of the alignment line relative to at least one of the first reference line and the second reference line meets and/or exceeds the threshold angle value, marking drawing the fluid substance into the dispensing tip and/or initiating drawing the fluid substance into the dispensing tip.
  17. 17. The system of claim 1 or 2, wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to: determining a length of the at least one reference line based on the captured image of the tip; obtaining an actual length of the at least one reference line; calculating a ratio between the length of the at least one reference line and the actual length of the at least one reference line, and Depth misalignment of the dispensing tip is determined based on the ratio.
  18. 18. The system of claim 17, wherein the system is further configured to: the determined volume of the fluid substance is adjusted based on the ratio.
  19. 19. The system of claim 1 or 2, further comprising: A light source and a sample pipetting module, Wherein the light source and the image capturing unit are attached to the sample pipetting module, and/or Wherein the light source and the image capturing unit are configured to move with the sample pipetting module such that an image of the dispensing tip can be captured at any location of the sample pipetting module.
  20. 20. The system according to claim 1 or 2, Wherein the sample pipetting device is configured to aspirate liquid into another dispensing tip; Wherein the system is configured to determine a volume of the aspirated liquid; Wherein the image capturing unit is configured to capture a further image of the further dispensing tip; Wherein the computing device is configured to determine a pixel distance between reference points in the image associated with the other dispensing tip and to correlate the determined volume to the determined pixel distance.

Description

Substance preparation evaluation system The application relates to a divisional application of a Chinese patent application with the application date of 2017, 10, 27, the application number of 201780073459.6 and the name of a substance preparation and evaluation system. Cross-reference to related patent applications The present application was filed as PCT international patent application at 10, 27 in 2017 and claims priority from U.S. patent application serial No. 62/414,655 and U.S. patent application serial No. 62/525,948 filed at 28 in 10, 2016 and at 6 in 2017, the disclosures of both of which are incorporated by reference in their entireties. Technical Field The present invention relates generally to the field of automated material preparation and evaluation. In particular, the present invention relates to methods and systems for evaluating fluid substances (such as samples with body fluids) in containers and/or dispensing tips. Furthermore, the present invention relates to a computer program element for instructing a computing device and/or a processing device to perform the steps of any method of evaluating a fluid substance. Furthermore, the invention relates to a computer readable medium storing such a computer program element. Background The background of the invention relates to the field of automated material preparation and evaluation. Disclosure of Invention It may be an object of the present invention to provide an improved method and system for automatically evaluating fluid substances with improved reliability, improved quality, improved accuracy and improved throughput. The object of the invention is solved by the subject matter of the independent claims, wherein further embodiments are contained in the dependent claims and in the following description. According to a first aspect of the present disclosure, a method of evaluating a fluid substance in a container is provided. The method according to the first aspect may, among other things, refer to a method for operating a dispensing tip evaluation system, such as the exemplary method described with reference to fig. 1, and/or to a method for operating a sample quality detection device, such as the exemplary methods described with reference to fig. 42 to 55. Moreover, the method according to the first aspect may refer to a method for operating a volume detection system, such as the exemplary methods described with reference to fig. 5 to 15 and/or fig. 9 to 21. Further, the method of the first aspect may refer to a method of operating a correlation data generating system, such as the exemplary methods described with reference to fig. 8 to 21. The method according to the first aspect comprises the steps of: -capturing an image of at least a portion of the container using an image capturing device, wherein the image capturing device may comprise an image capturing unit; obtaining a plurality of color parameters of at least a portion of the image using at least one computing device and/or at least one processing device, and -Generating a sample classification result of the fluid substance contained in the container based on the plurality of color parameters. Wherein the sample classification result is representative of and/or indicative of the concentration of at least one interfering substance in the fluid substance. Here and hereinafter, the image capturing device and/or the image capturing unit may refer to, for example, a dispensing tip image capturing unit. According to an embodiment of the method of the first aspect, obtaining the plurality of color parameters comprises: generating a histogram for at least a portion of the image, the histogram comprising a plurality of color channels, and -Obtaining a plurality of averages and/or averages of the plurality of color channels, wherein the plurality of color parameters comprises a plurality of averages of the plurality of color channels. Wherein a mean value and/or a mean value may be determined for each color channel or a portion of the color channels. According to an embodiment of the method of the first aspect, obtaining the plurality of color parameters comprises: generating a histogram for at least a portion of the image, the histogram comprising a plurality of color channels, and -Obtaining and/or determining a plurality of Riemann sums for the plurality of color channels, wherein the plurality of color parameters comprises a plurality of Riemann sums for the plurality of color channels. Wherein a Riemann sum may be obtained and/or determined for each color channel or a portion of the color channels. According to an embodiment of the method of the first aspect, obtaining the plurality of color parameters comprises: -generating a histogram for at least a portion of the image, the histogram comprising a plurality of color channels; -obtaining a plurality of modes of the plurality of color channels; obtaining a plurality of maxima for the plurality of color channels, and/or -Obtaining a