Hyperspectral imaging technique to evaluate the firmness and the sweetness index of tomatoes

The objective of this study was to evaluate the firmness and the sweetness index (SI) of tomatoes with a hyperspectral imaging (HSI) technique within the wavelength range of 1000 - 1550 nm. The hyperspectral images of 95 tomatoes were acquired with a push-broom hyperspectral reflectance imaging system, from which the mean spectra of each tomato were extracted from the regions of interest. The reference firmness and sweetness index of the same sample was measured and calibrated with their corresponding spectral data by partial least squares (PLS) regression with different preprocessing methods. The calibration model developed by PLS regression based on the Savitzky-Golay second-derivative preprocessed spectra resulted in a better performance for both the firmness and the SI of the tomatoes compared to models developed by other preprocessing methods. The correlation coefficients ($R_{pred}$) were 0.82, and 0.74 with a standard error of prediction of 0.86 N, and 0.63, respectively. Then, the feature wavelengths were identified using a model-based variable selection method, i.e., variable importance in projection, from the PLS regression analyses. Finally, chemical images were derived by applying the respective regression coefficients on the spectral image in a pixel-wise manner. The resulting chemical images provided detailed information on the firmness and the SI of the tomatoes. The results show that the proposed HSI technique has potential for rapid and non-destructive evaluation of firmness and the sweetness index of tomatoes.