Multi-Channel Vision System for On-Line Quantification of Appearance Quality Factors of Apple

An integrated on-line inspection system was constructed with seven cameras, half mirrors to split images. 720 nm and 970 nm band pass filters, illumination chamber having several tungsten-halogen lamps, one main computer, one color frame grabber, two 4-channel multiplexors, and flat plate conveyer, etc. A total of seven images, that is, one color image form the top of an apple and two B/W images from each side (top, right and left) could be captured and displayed on a computer monitor through the multiplexor. One of the two B/W images captured from each side is 720nm filtered image and the other is 970 nm. With this system an on-line grading software was developed to evaluate appearance quality. On-line test results with Fuji apples that were manually fed on the conveyer showed that grading accuracies of the color, defect and shape were 95.3%, 86% and 88.6%, respectively. Grading time was 0.35 second per apple on an average. Therefore, this on-line grading system could be used for inspection of the final products produced from an apple sorting system.