Proper Light Array Design for the Optimum Nondestructive Evaluation of Fruit’s Internal Quality

Abstract

This study was conducted to develop an accurate quality evaluation system based on optimized factors such as light source array and light power, which are used in non-destructive fruit sorter to obtain the internal quality information of fruits using the near infrared transmittance spectra. It is necessary to provide the proper design guide for the light source part in the existing non-destructive fruit sorters for apples and pears, and to measure the real-time near infrared transmittance spectrum without the leakage of light. The near infrared transmittance spectrum detection system was developed with the light source part which has the power-controllable 12 halogen lamps (100W/12V) with gold coating, light detection part, and transfer line. By using the accurate control of the voltage and current (maximum power is 1.2kW) in light power control part, it is concluded that the minimum power for the internal quality evaluation of apples and pears was over 0.5 kW. To prevent the leakage of light, the array of light source was rearranged and tested. Without changing the tray structure, it is concluded that the leakage of light can be prevented by the proper array of light source and power. For the irradiation for the moving apples and pears, 2 upper lamps and 4 lower lamps combination did not have leakage of light and the correlation coefficient of this combination shows the 0.90 for apples and 0.96 for pears.