Biochemistry is one of the most important blood sciences because it evaluates the complex of biomolecules from the living cells and the processes that take place at cellular level. A routine biochemistry analysis supplies important information about the hydro-electrolytic balance, the glycemic levels, the hepatic and renal functions. The paper presents an original automated portable biochemistry prototype analyzer which uses a real-time image acquisition algorithm instead of a reflectance photometer. The novelty consists in using an USB mini VGA camera which is triggered when the dry chemistry tests are placed in front of the camera’s lens after the colorimetric reaction takes place. The presented prototype is a low-cost, reliable and performance comparable with the existing dry chemistry analyzers from the market. The main advantage represents the programming flexibility with less hardware components.

Keywords: Biochemistry analyzer, Image acquisition, Dry chemistry, Point-of-care, Spectrophotometry