Ke-Nung Huang

The Implementation of a Stand-alone Video Tracking and Analysis System for Animal Behavior Measurement in Morris Water Maze

In this paper, a digital image tracking and analysis system based on FPGA is presented. The goal of this research is to build an animal tracking system with a new algorithm for Morris water maze experiment application. Our tracking algorithm can track animal motion and is insensitive to environment brightness change. The system can process the high-resolution image up to 700times480 pixels in real-time speed. We can analyze tiny animal behavior change precisely. This system is very compact and is portable. Compared with other similar device, our system is a standalone operation without the need of a personal computer

An accurate air temperature measurement system based on an envelope pulsed ultrasonic time-of-flight technique

A new microcomputer based air temperature measurement system is presented. An accurate temperature measurement is derived from the measurement of sound velocity by using an ultrasonic time-of-flight (TOF) technique. The study proposes a novel algorithm that combines both amplitude modulation (AM) and phase modulation (PM) to get the TOF measurement. The proposed system uses the AM and PM envelope square waveform (APESW) to reduce the error caused by inertia delay. The APESW ultrasonic driving waveform causes an envelope zero and phase inversion phenomenon in the relative waveform of the receiver. To accurately achieve a TOF measurement, the phase inversion phenomenon was used to sufficiently identify the measurement pulse in the received waveform. Additionally, a counter clock technique was combined to compute the phase shifts of the last incomplete cycle for TOF. The presented system can obtain 0.1% TOF resolution for the period corresponding to the 40 kHz frequency ultrasonic wave. Consequently, with the integration of a humidity compensation algorithm, a highly accurate and high resolution temperature measurement can be achieved using the accurate TOF measurement. Experimental results indicate that the combined standard uncertainty of the temperature measurement is approximately 0.39 degrees C. The main advantages of this system are high resolution measurements, narrow bandwidth requirements, and ease of implementation.

Video tracking algorithm of long-term experiment using stand-alone recording system

Many medical and behavioral applications require the ability to monitor and quantify the behavior of small animals. In general these animals are confined in small cages. Often these situations involve very large numbers of cages. Modern research facilities commonly monitor simultaneously thousands of animals over long periods of time. However, conventional systems require one personal computer per monitoring platform, which is too complex, expensive, and increases power consumption for large laboratory applications. This paper presents a simplified video tracking algorithm for long-term recording using a stand-alone system. The feature of the presented tracking algorithm revealed that computation speed is very fast data storage requirements are small, and hardware requirements are minimal. The stand-alone system automatically performs tracking and saving acquired data to a secure digital card. The proposed system is designed for video collected at a 640 x 480 pixel with 16 bit color resolution. The tracking result is updated every 30 frames/s. Only the locomotive data are stored. Therefore, the data storage requirements could be minimized. In addition, detection via the designed algorithm uses the Cb and Cr values of a colored marker affixed to the target to define the tracked position and allows multiobject tracking against complex backgrounds. Preliminary experiment showed that such tracking information stored by the portable and stand-alone system could provide comprehensive information on the animals activity.

DEVELOPMENT OF QUARTZ CRYSTAL MICROBALANCE-BASED IMMUNOSENSOR FOR DETECTING ALPHA-FETOPROTEIN

Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) is a well-known tumor marker related to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The purpose of this study was to develop a high-sensitivity and low-cost AFP immunosensor for the early diagnosis of cancers by using quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and self-assembly monolayer (SAM) technologies. The results indicated a high mass-sensitivity (0.299 Hz ml ng−1) and sensing linearity (99.23%) in a range of 10–40 ng/ml AFP concentration measured by the QCM-based AFP immunosensor. No interference effects were observed in bovine serum albumin (BSA) which demonstrated the high binding specificity of the sensor. The result also showed a high degree of correlation (R2 = 0.996) compared with ELISA method. It shows the proposed QCM-based immunosensor is promising for clinical application of AFP determination.

Study of the Eye's Image Processing for the Determination of Driver's Fatigue

The motor vehicle is one of great inventions in recent century. It although brings more convenient life for us, it also makes more troubles at the same time. The number of traffic accidents that caused casualties in the past two years. It has 160,000 accidents in Taiwan, 1,800,000 in America and 7,000 in Singapore; about 90% of these accidents are man-made. Among them, over ninety percent of accidents are caused due to the careless of drivers. Therefore, the study of driver status detection is increase gradually. The development platform in the paper is based on LabVIEW, NIIMAQ Vision,and the hardware which are the CCD and the NI-PCI 1411 image acquisition card to realize an eyes state recognition system. In the paper, we designed the system that included the face detection, the face tracking, the eyes image locating and extracting, the eyes opening and closing state recognition. Finally, in order to avoid the situation of the tilted head will interfere with the systems operation, we realized no matter face tilts or not, the system can still recognize the eyes opening and closing. By the study effort of above, we hope to provide some contributions to the developer in the area of face detection and feature recognition, and contribute my mental and physical efforts to the study of driver status detection analysis to reduce the traffic accidents.

Stand-Alone Video-Based Animal Tracking System for Noiseless Application

Abstract The acoustic environment is an important variable in studies with animal behavior and psychology. Noise represents an important factor in laboratory settings. Noise of moderate intensity is produced by air conditioning devices and experimental equipment. Traditional automated video tracking systems require one personal computer per monitoring platform, which are noisy and inconvenient for large laboratory applications. This paper presents a stand-alone system for this function (noise-control environment/noiseless application). A novel system combination of FPGA and MCU simultaneously and automatically perform tracking and saving acquired data to an SD card. A fast and efficient tracking algorithm is designed and implemented. Detection via the designed algorithm uses the Y (luminance component), Cb (blue-difference chrominance component) and Cr (red-difference chrominance component) value of a colored marker affixed to the target to define the tracked position and allows multi-object tracking against complex backgrounds. The tracking result is updated every 30 frames/second and only the locomotive data are stored. The proposed system can track animals locomotion totally noiseless operating.

Respiratory Rate Monitoring Gauze Mask System Based on a Pyroelectric Transducer

This paper presents a gauze mask type respiratory rate monitoring system. The proposed system attaches a flexible piezo film sensor to a gauze mask to sense the respiratory airflow. During breathing, the temperature of respiratory airflow varies in inspiration and expiration phases. This temperature variation could be detected by the pyroelectricity of the piezoelectric film sensor. Monitoring the sensor output variation therefore could monitor the subjects respiratory rate. This pyroelectric response is faster than traditional temperature-sensitive devices (thermistors and thermocouples). In addition, the flexible property of the evaluated piezo film sensor makes it easily been attached with a gauze mask. The advantages of this respiratory rate monitoring system are rapid response time, low cost, and ease of implementation.

The Study of a Handheld Digital Microscope for Biomedical Applications

In recent years, biotechnology is a highly developed and popular research topic. Microorganism behavior measurement is an important method for biotechnology experiment. Microscope is often used to measure microorganism behavior. The disadvantages of using the tradition microscope are expensive, heavy when the magnification is too large its not easy to tracking microorganism. In this research, we focus on the development of a low-cost and convenient hand-held digital microscope platform. Based on digital microscope technology, we can observe and record any tiny objects behavior and movement, like Paramecium behavior etc. The platform is not only low-cost, easy to operation, but it can also connect to a computer for further data processing and analysis it let the digital microscope can be used in many applications.

The Study of Auto-Focus System for Biomedical Digital Microscope

The bioengineering is a popular and fast-developing researching topic in recent years. Among them, the observation of microorganism is a very important experimental approach of bioengineering. As the biological sensing chip technology becomes mature, it is even beneficial to the research. Most of the biological sensing chips for measuring and observation adopt different type of precise microscopes and the corresponding software. However, the size is very big and the cost is expensive. Besides, the manufacturing processes and requirements of different biological sensing chips are different, different software are required for analysis. This limits the applying scope. Therefore, we focus on manufacturing low-cost, small size and portable auto-focus digital microscope in this study. The auto- focus technology is combined with microscope so that it is more convenient for the users to observe the biological sensing chip. Different objects for observation have been considered in the design process. Therefore, the microscope has been designed for both standing inverted or upright. Observers can use the standing inverted microscope to observe the behavior and track of microorganism on biological sensing chip, such as cell separation chip. Besides, the standing upright microscope can be used to observe cell slides, such as animal or plant slides. In addition to the low cost and portability, the free focus technology also makes the focus concentrating on the target and it can link up with computer so that the observed data can be processed with different types of operation and analysis. This includes counting of cells and analysis of motion tracks so that the application of microscope would be wider.

Development of a multitarget tracking system for paramecia

This investigation develops a multitarget tracking system for the motile protozoa, paramecium. The system can recognize, track, and record the orbit of swimming paramecia within a 4 mm diameter of a circular experimental pool. The proposed system is implemented using an optical microscope, a charge-coupled device camera, and a software tool, Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Engineering Workbench (LABVIEW). An algorithm for processing the images and analyzing the traces of the paramecia is developed in LABVIEW. It focuses on extracting meaningful data in an experiment and recording them to elucidate the behavior of paramecia. The algorithm can also continue to track paramecia even if they are transposed or collide with each other. The experiment demonstrates that this multitarget tracking design can really track more than five paramecia and simultaneously yield meaningful data from the moving paramecia at a maximum speed of 1.7 mm/s.