Detection of Fruit Fly Infestation in Pickling Cucumbers using Hyperspectral Imaging

Authors: Lu, Renfu; ARIANA, DIWAN - Michigan State University

Submitted to: Proceedings of SPIE
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/20/2011
Publication Date: 6/20/2011
Citation: Lu, R., Ariana, D. 2011. Detection of Fruit Fly Infestation in Pickling Cucumbers using Hyperspectral Imaging. Proceedings of SPIE. 8027-0K.

Interpretive Summary: Fruit fly infestation can be a serious problem in pickling cucumber production. In the United States and many other countries, there is zero tolerance for fruit flies in pickled products. Currently, processors rely on manual inspection to detect and remove fruit fly-infested cucumbers, which is labor intensive and also prone to error due to human fatigue and the difficulty of visually detecting infestation that is hidden inside the fruit. In this research, a laboratory online hyperspectral imaging system, developed by a USDA/ARS lab in East Lansing, Michigan, was used to detect pest infestation in pickling cucumbers. The hyperspectral imaging system was able to acquire hyperspectral reflectance images for 450-740 nm and hyperspectral transmittance images for 740-1,000 nm simultaneously. It scanned 156 normal or pest-free pickling cucumbers and 173 infested cucumbers of three size classes. Mean spectra were extracted from the hyperspectral images of each cucumber, and these spectra were then corrected for the fruit size effect using a fruit diameter correction equation. A classification algorithm was developed to differentiate between the normal and infested cucumbers for each of the three sensing modes (i.e., reflectance, transmittance and their combination). The results showed that reflectance mode achieved overall classification accuracies between 82% and 88%, whereas transmittance had better classification results with the overall accuracies of 88%-93%. Integration of reflectance and transmittance did not result in noticeable improvements, compared to transmittance mode. Overall, the hyperspectral imaging system performed better than manual inspection, which had an overall accuracy of 75% and decreased significantly for smaller size cucumbers. This research demonstrated that hyperspectral imaging is potentially useful for detecting fruit fly infestation in pickling cucumbers.

Technical Abstract: Fruit fly infestation can be a serious problem in pickling cucumber production. In the United States and many other countries, there is zero tolerance for fruit flies in pickled products. Currently, processors rely on manual inspection to detect and remove fruit fly-infested cucumbers, which is labor intensive and also prone to error due to human fatigue and the difficulty of visually detecting infestation that is hidden inside the fruit. In this research, a laboratory hyperspectral imaging system was used to detect fruit fly-infested pickling cucumbers. Hyperspectral reflectance (450-740 nm) and transmittance (740-1,000 nm) images were acquired simultaneously for 329 normal (infestation free) and fruit fly-infested pickling cucumbers of three size classes with the mean diameters of 16.8, 22.1, and 27.6 mm, respectively. Mean spectra were extracted from the hyperspectral image of each cucumber, and they were then corrected for the fruit size effect using a diameter correction equation.Partial least squares discriminant analyses for the reflectance, transmittance and their combined data were performed for differentiating normal and infested pickling cucumbers. With reflectance mode, the overall classification accuracies for the three size classes and mixed class were between 82% and 88%, whereas transmittance achieved better classification results with the overall accuracies of 88%-93%. Integration of reflectance and transmittance did not result in noticeable improvements, compared to transmittance mode. Overall, the hyperspectral imaging system performed better than manual inspection, which had an overall accuracy of 75% and decreased significantly for smaller size cucumbers. This research demonstrated that hyperspectral imaging is potentially useful for detecting fruit fly-infested pickling cucumbers.