title: Using near infrared measurement of water content as a cue for detecting biological materials.
abstract: This paper uses the spectral characteristics of water as a cue to detect biological materials in a scene. The spectra of a wide variety of materials were measured; most of the biological materials showed a spectral feature corresponding to the absorption peak of water at 962 nm. A machine vision system that used two narrowband near infrared light sources and a conventional CCD camera is described. The ability of the system to detect biological material is demonstrated in a series of examples. Water content is not an infallible indicator that a material is biological-wet inanimate surfaces will give a false positive, and some tissues are surrounded by highly scattering, impermeable layers that conceal internal water. Nonetheless, in this paper, we will show that many tissues do give a strong response to this feature and dry, nonbiological materials do not.
authors.affiliation: CTR AG, Europastrasse 4/1, A-9524 Villach, Austria. gerald.mcgunnigle@ctr.at
authors.forename: Gerald
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: McGunnigle
mesh_terms: D000042:Absorption; D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle; D006801:Humans; D007259:Infrared Rays; D008099:Liver / Q000737:chemistry; D009132:Muscles / Q000737:chemistry; D010944:Plants / Q000737:chemistry; D012867:Skin / Q000737:chemistry; D019265:Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared / Q000379:methods*; D013499:Surface Properties; D013552:Swine; D014867:Water / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D014867:Water