High-accuracy prediction of meat expiration dates by overcoming non-linearity barriers for microcantilever biosensors

Our objective is to invent a microcantilever-based biosensor enabling precise
measurements of low levels of cadaverine and use this to predict meat expiration dates. Very small differences in cadaverine levels, at an early deterioration stage, translates into large differences with respect to expiration date. Therefore, it is a strict requirement that the biosensor enables high-accuracy measurements of +/-10% at low levels of cadaverine, down to 10μg per kg of meat. To achieve this, we must overcome current state-of-the-art barriers; that microcantilevers provide nonlinear responses and that mathematical response processing models for nonlinearity compensation are lacking. Our research hypothesis is that an array of microcantilever beams in different sizes or with different coatings, leading to different characteristic frequency modes, will enable dynamic real-time monitoring of an array of constants that can be fed into a mathematical model developed for non-linearity compensation.