Multi-Wavelength Machine Learning for High-Precision Colorimetric Sensing

Conventional colorimetric sensing methods typically rely on signal intensity at a single wavelength, often selected heuristically based on peak visual modulation. This approach overlooks the structured information embedded in full-spectrum transmission profiles, particularly in intensity-based systems where linear models may be highly effective. In this study, we experimentally demonstrate that applying a forward feature selection strategy to normalized transmission spectra, combined with linear regression and ten-fold cross-validation, yields significant improvements in predictive accuracy. Using food dye dilutions as a model system, the mean squared error was reduced from over 22,000 with a single wavelength to 3.87 using twelve selected features, corresponding to a more than 5700-fold enhancement. These results validate that full-spectrum modeling enables precise concentration prediction without requiring changes to the sensing hardware. The approach provides a proof-of-concept framework that may be extended to colorimetric assays used in medical diagnostics, environmental monitoring, and industrial analysis following broader validation with real analytes and heterogeneous sample matrices.