Machine-Learning-Assisted Analysis of Colorimetric Assays on Paper Analytical Devices

Paper-based analytical devices (PADs) employing colorimetric detection and smartphone images have gained wider acceptance in a variety of measurement applications. PADs are primarily meant to be used in field settings where assay and imaging conditions greatly vary, resulting in less accurate results. Recently, machine-learning (ML)-assisted models have been used in image analysis. We evaluated a combination of four ML models-logistic regression, support vector machine (SVM), random forest, and artificial neural network (ANN)-as well as three image color spaces, RGB, HSV, and LAB, for their ability to accurately predict analyte concentrations. We used images of PADs taken at varying lighting conditions, with different cameras and users for food color and enzyme inhibition assays to create training and test datasets. The prediction accuracy was higher for food color than enzyme inhibition assays in most of the ML models and color space combinations. All models better predicted coarse-level classifications than fine-grained concentration classes. ML models using the sample color along with a reference color increased the models' ability to predict the result in which the reference color may have partially factored out the variation in ambient assay and imaging conditions. The best concentration class prediction accuracy obtained for food color was 0.966 when using the ANN model and LAB color space. The accuracy for enzyme inhibition assay was 0.908 when using the SVM model and LAB color space. Appropriate models and color space combinations can be useful to analyze large numbers of samples on PADs as a powerful low-cost quick field-testing tool.