Machine vision based quality evaluation of Iyokan orange fruit using neural networks

It is a common belief that a sweet Iyokan orange fruit is reddish in color, of medium size, with a height to width ratio less than one, and having a glossy surface. However, the criteria are ambiguous and vary from people to people and locations to locations. In this paper, sugar content and acid content of Iyokan orange fruit were evaluated using a machine vision system. Images of 30 Iyokan orange fruits were acquired by a color TV camera. Features representing fruit color, shape, and roughness of fruit surface were extracted from the images. The features included RIG color component ratio, Feret's diameter ratio, and textural features. These features and weight of the fruit were entered to the input layers of neural networks, while sugar content or pH of the fruit was used as the values of the output layers. Several neural networks were found to be able to predict the sugar content or pH from the fruit appearance with a reasonable accuracy. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.