Investigating the effects of simulated transport vibration on tomato tissue damage based on vis/NIR spectroscopy

Abstract

Visible and near infrared (vis/NIR) spectroscopy combined with chemometrics were investigated to evaluate the effects of simulated transport vibration levels on damage of tomato fruit. A total of 280 tomato samples were randomly divided into 5 groups; each group was subjected to vibration at different acceleration levels. A total of 230 samples (46 from each group) were selected as a calibration set; whereas 50 samples (10 from each group) were selected as a prediction set. Raw spectra, differentiation (the first derivative) spectra, extended multiplicative scatter correction (EMSC) processed spectra and standard normal variant combined with detrending (SNV–DT) processed spectra were used for calibration models. SNV–DT processed spectra had the best performance using for partial least squares (PLS) analysis. The PLS analysis was implemented to calibrate models with different wavelength bands including visible, short-wave near infrared (SWNIR) and long-wave near infrared (LWNIR) regions. The best PLS model was obtained in the vis/NIR (600–1600nm) region. Using a grid search technique and radial basis function (RBF) kernel, four least squares support vector machine (LS–SVM) models with different latent variables (7, 8, 9, and 10 LVs) were compared. The optimal model was obtained with 9 LVs and the correlation coefficient (r), root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP) and bias for the best prediction by LS–SVM were 0.984, 0.137 and 0.003, respectively. The results showed that vis/NIR spectroscopy could be applied as a reliable and rapid method for predicting the effect of vibration levels on tissue damage of tomato fruit.