Quality Inspection of Fruits and Vegetables With Hyperspectral Imaging

Assessing the quality of fruits and vegetables is vital to achieving better yield, improving shelf life, and reducing waste. Comprehensive quality assessment involves inspecting the external appearance and intrinsic characteristics of fruits and vegetables. External defects, like bruises and blemishes, or firmness are some indicators of quality. Intrinsic characteristics, like moisture content, correlates with taste and aroma that can implicate the overall quality of fruits and vegetables.

Traditionally, inspecting the external appearance of fruits and vegetables relies on manual handling that is time-consuming and non-objective. Meanwhile, the methods used to assess their intrinsic characteristics involve destructing the sample or costly chemical analysis. Today, many fruit and vegetable producers are replacing their inspection process with hyperspectral imaging (HSI) technology for fast, accurate, and non-destructive evaluation.

HSI technology like Specim IQ and FX series cameras can provide a fast, cost-effective, and non-invasive way to assess the quality of fruits and vegetables. The Specim IQ and FX series cameras measure what is on the visible spectrum as well as wavelengths our eye cannot perceive. Additionally, they can measure numerous narrow wavelength bands over a continuous spectral range, providing a much more accurate characterization of external texture and chemical compositions.

The Specim IQ and FX series cameras are based on push-broom (line scan) technology. It captures the full spectral and spatial information of the target line-by-line. The captured lines are then combined to form the final spectral image (data cube). This method is ideal for inspecting on-line applications with a large group of moving targets like fruits and vegetables.

Besides food applications, the Specim IQ and FX series cameras can also be utilized in various other industrial and research applications. For example, they can be used to sort waste and recycled plastic, inspect the chemical components of pharmaceutical products, detect plant stress and diseases, and classify skin lesions.

Check out these videos to learn more about Specim IQ and FX series cameras.

At Konica Minolta, we can help you to find the right HSI solutions for your application needs. Contact us for a free consultation or product demonstration.