Hardware implementation of Modified Annular Ring Ratio for Blood Cell Detection in Thin Blood Smear Images

摘要

Malaria continues to spread in endemic areas. This deadly disease is the subject of multiple researches in terms of patient diagnoses. Post treatment diagnoses are necessary to make sure that patients treated for malaria continue to be free from Plasmodium protozoan parasites. Fast and automated analyses are possible with image processing of blood cell samples. This paper proposes a modified version of an image processing algorithm named Annular Ring Ratio, which identifies and locates the blood cell present in the thin blood smear images, to make the algorithm amenable to efficient hardware implementation through the elimination of the costly division process. The Annular Ring Ratio process identifies circular shapes through the calculation of a ratio between two circular areas. With proper configuration it can detect cell and parasite positions leading to the identification of infected cells and further estimate the level of infections.