A New Eye on Law Enforcement

by Benjamin ver Steeg & Trent Ridder oemagazine, June/July 2005 Although alcohol testing is typically associated with drunk driving, it also plays significant roles in probation monitoring, workplace safety, and emergency medicine. Current measurement techniques suffer from two key limitations: they require the handling of a bodily fluid, which gives rise to biohazard concerns, and they require some degree of direct subject supervision from a test administrator. A recent advance in optical testing methods promises to overcome these limitations by simultaneously offering improved subject safety and the ability to conduct completely unsupervised testing. Our team has developed a touch-based alcohol monitoring technology that uses near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy to noninvasively measure alcohol through a subject's skin. This creates a rapid, easy-to-use method for determining alcohol concentration in a variety of environments. Read more