More recently, the US FDA has embarked on an industrial
collaborative project which aims to develop Chemical
Imaging instrumentation for blend process monitoring [45].
A prototype instrument, the Blend Monitor, has been
designed for application of NIR Chemical Imaging at a
process scale. This instrument is based on a LCTF staring
imager configuration; a fibre optic bundle is interfaced with
the blender to collect and transmit NIR spectral information
from the blend to the NIR imaging spectrometer
[37]. The instrument thus records Chemical Images of samples
inside the blender. However, rotation of the blender is
problematic as the Blend Monitor cannot co-rotate, requiring
the blender to be stopped before measurement. Therefore,
this instrument cannot currently be used for taking
measurements during processing.