Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Postharvest Automation
14
Naoshi Kondo and Shuso Kawamura
CONTENTS
14.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 367
14.2 Automation of Grain Processing .................................................................. 368
14.2.1 Grain Elevator................................................................................... 368
14.2.2
Automatic Rice Quality Inspection System ..................................... 369
14.2.3 Dryers ............................................................................................... 371
14.2.4 Storage in Silos ................................................................................. 371
14.2.5 Hulling Systems................................................................................ 371
14.2.6 Sorting Systems ................................................................................ 372
14.3 Grading Facility for Fruits and Vegetables................................................... 373
14.3.1 Reception and Depalletizing Operations.......................................... 373
14.3.2 Dumping, Preprocessing, and Singulation Operation ...................... 373
14.3.3 Mechanical Fruit Conveying and Inspection Systems ..................... 373
14.3.3.1 Fruit Conveyor ................................................................... 373
14.3.3.2 Grading Robot.................................................................... 375
14.3.4 Sorting Operation ............................................................................. 378
14.3.5 Packing and Palletizing Operation ................................................... 378
14.4 Sensors of Inspection Systems...................................................................... 378
14.4.1 Images from Machine Vision Systems ............................................. 378
14.4.2 Near Infrared Spectroscopy.............................................................. 381
14.5 Summary ...................................................................................................... 381
References .............................................................................................................. 381
14.1 INTRODUCTION
From current situations of automation in agriculture, post-harvesting operations are
the most automated and computerized with near-infrared (NIR) and machine vision
technologies among many agricultural operations based on many studies (Miller and
Delwiche, 1991; Okamura et al., 1991; Rehkugler and Throop, 1986; Shaw, 1990; Tao
et al., 1990; Lu and Ariana, 2002), because these operations offer suitable environ-
ments to introduce sensing systems, equipment, and PCs under structures. In grading
facilities for fruits and vegetables, where many kinds of operations are conducted
from reception to shipping, packing robots and palletizing robots have frequently
appeared in fruit grading facilities (Njoroge et al., 2002) since more than 10 years
ago, whereas grading robots (Kondo, 2003), which suck round-shaped fruits and
inspect by a machine vision system, have only been recently introduced in Asian
countries. For grains such as rice and wheat, many facilities were constructed and
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