Bacterial detection is of primary
importance in many fields, such as food and environmental monitoring.
Measurements of bacterial concentration are traditionally carried out by means
of the Standard Plate Count technique, a reliable method for microbial
screening that, however, features long response time and is carried out by
qualified personnel in microbiology laboratories. The impedance technique for
bacterial concentration detection represents a method very competitive with
Standard Plate Count in terms of response time (3-12 hours vs. 24-72 hours) as
well as for the possibility to be realized in automatic form.
This paper presents an embedded portable
biosensor system for the measurement of bacterial concentration in cow’s raw
milk. The possibility to perform measurements “on the field”, hence without the
need to ship samples to distant laboratories, and to transmit the data on
wireless communication systems or on the Internet represents a substantial
advantage in terms of time and cost, thus making the presented system an
important tool for in-situ bacterial screening.