Predictive System Implementation to Improve the Accuracy of Urine Self-Diagnosis with Smartphones: Application of a Confusion Matrix-Based Learning Model through RGB Semiquantitative Analysis

Abstract

Urinalysis, an elementary chemical reaction-based method for analyzing color conversion factors, facilitates examination of pathological conditions in the human body. Recently, considerable urinalysis-centered research has been conducted on the analysis of urine dipstick colors using smartphone cameras; however, such methods have a drawback: the problem of reproducibility of accuracy through quantitative analysis. In this study, to solve this problem, the function values for each concentration of a range of analysis factors were implemented in an algorithm through urine dipstick RGB semi-quantitative color analysis to enable real-time results. Herein, pH, glucose, ketones, hemoglobin, bilirubin, protein (albumin), and nitrites were selected as analysis factors, and the accuracy levels of the existing equipment and the test application were compared and evaluated using artificial urine. In the semi-quantitative analysis, the red (R), green (G), and blue (B) characteristic values were analyzed by extracting the RGB characteristic values of the analysis factors for each concentration of artificial urine and obtaining linear function values. In addition, to improve the reproducibility of detection accuracy, the measurement value of the existing test equipment was set to an absolute value; using a machine-learning technique, the confusion matrix, we attempted to stabilize test results that vary with environment.