Indian scientists develop algorithm to grade fruits
Shape, size, colour and texture are important grading parameters to gauge the quality of a fruit. One of the major tasks in the post-harvest processing of oranges is the classification of fruits based on their external appearance and a determination of skin defects. Manual quality checks for the grading of fruits are subjective, time-consuming and inefficient, particularly when dealing with large quantities.
Researchers at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of Annamalai University in Chidambaram have developed a new technique based on image processing for the automated quality checking of fruits, based on colour and texture. They took a set of healthy oranges and another of oranges with skin defects and developed a database of images, with a series of attributes. They deployed an image processing tool known as ‘grey level co-occurrence matrix’ to develop the new algorithm for fruit checking.
“We used image analysis techniques to classify orange fruits into two commercial grading stages, which successfully extract useful and meaningful features to uniquely represent external surfaces for classification purposes,” researchers observed in their study, which appeared in scientific journal Current Science this week. They suggest that the technique could be useful for the detection of skin damage on other fruits as well in future. R Thendran and A Suhasini are co-authors of the study.
Orange is the third most important tropical fruit crop in India, after mango and banana. After harvest, fruits are shifted to packing plants for analysis of various quality parameters which determine price and destination. Orange grading is generally carried out based on external visible criteria such as size, shape, colour and texture of the fruits.
Source: tech.firstpost.com
