Characterization of liquids in sealed containers

Abstract

A method of illuminating and extracting scattered and transmitted light from a liquid within a sealed glass bottle, the method comprising initiating transmission of an incident light beam from a light source to the sealed bottle, directing the incident light beam to totally internally refract within a wall of the sealed bottle and thereby cause an evanescent wave within the liquid to generate scattered or absorbed light, receiving the scattered or absorbed light from the liquid contained in the sealed bottle, and processing one or more signals representative of the scattered or absorbed light, the signals indicative of one or more molecules indicative of a characteristic being present in the liquid contained in the sealed bottle.

1 . A method of illuminating and extracting scattered and transmitted light from a liquid within a sealed glass bottle, the method comprising:
 initiating transmission of an incident light beam from a light source to the sealed bottle;   directing the incident light beam to totally internally refract within a wall of the sealed bottle and thereby cause an evanescent wave within the liquid to generate scattered or absorbed light;   receiving the scattered or absorbed light from the liquid contained in the sealed bottle; and   processing one or more signals representative of the scattered or absorbed light, the signals indicative of one or more molecules indicative of a characteristic being present in the liquid contained in the sealed bottle.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein directing the light beam to totally internally reflect comprises directing the light beam to transmit through a prism in contact with the bottle wall. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein receiving the scattered or absorbed light comprises directing the scattered or absorbed light through toward a spectrometer via a second prism. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3 , comprising placing an index-matching material between the prism and wall of the bottle. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein directing the light beam to totally internally reflect comprises directing the light beam to transmit through a ball lens in contact with the bottle wall. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein receiving the scattered or absorbed light comprises directing the scattered or absorbed light through optics toward a spectrometer. 
     
     
         7 . A method of illuminating and extracting scattered and transmitted light from a liquid within a sealed glass bottle, the method comprising:
 initiating transmission of an incident light beam from a light source to the sealed bottle and generate scattered or absorbed light;   separating a signal representative of light scattered or absorbed by the glass bottle and a signal representative of light scattered or absorbed by the liquid;   receiving the signal representative of light scattered or absorbed by the liquid; and   processing the signal representative of light scattered or absorbed by the liquid, the signal indicative of one or more molecules indicative of a characteristic being present in the liquid contained in the sealed bottle.   
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 7 , wherein separating the signals comprises directing the signal representative of light scattered or absorbed by the glass bottle and the signal representative of light scattered or absorbed by the liquid through a lens to generate two spatially-separated signals. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 7 , wherein separating the signals comprises blocking the signal representative of light scattered or absorbed by the glass bottle from being received at a spectrometer. 
     
     
         10 . A computing device implemented method comprising:
 receiving data representing features of a first wine and data representing features of a second wine collected by processing one or more signals representative of light scattered light from a bottle containing the first wine and a bottle containing the second wine;   receiving survey-based data representing a similarity between the first and second wines; and   training a machine learning system using the features of the first wine, the features of the second wine and the survey-based data that represents the similarity between the first and second wines.   
     
     
         11 . The computing device implemented method of  claim 10 , further comprising storing the data in a wine library, wherein the library is a distributed database of records of wine data. 
     
     
         12 . The computing device implemented method of  claim 10 , further comprising storing the data in a wine library entry, wherein the features include descriptive attributes of wine including the concentration of one or more molecules of interest present in the wine, and the library entry includes identifying features of the bottle. 
     
     
         13 . (canceled)