Detection of floating objects in liquids

The identification of floating particles in liquids in order to characterize their purity and quality is a topic of growing interest in the face of the increasing attention being paid to product quality control and the rising tide of pollution in primary goods such as the drinking water. The problem of microplastics spread in water and food is one of the main issues of attention today, mainly because of the effects on people's health who consume these goods. The monitoring of large volumes of water represents one of the main issues of interest that is driving the development of non-invasive and non-destructive high-precision techniques. Among the most interesting methods of performing this monitoring, optical systems represent a solution of great interest given their negligible, if any, impact on the monitored products and their ability to continuously analyzing the compound of interest. Given a high-quality optical recording system, it is necessary to complement it with a highly reliable and fast detection system to allow large volumes to be monitored in a relatively short time. In this scenario, the current paper brings three main contributions: (i) it defines and models a detection system with controllable reliability, (ii) it presents an online detection algorithm and (iii) it tests the suitability of the proposed system for integration into existing monitoring devices.